April 18, 2005

CAMDEN, NJ - The Saint Joseph's Men's Rowing Team continued its preparation for the Dad Vail and fielded six shells at the Knecht Cup Regatta on the Cooper River. Advancing all of its boats to the finals, SJU walked away with medals from the Lightweight 8, Freshman 8 and Lightweight Freshman 8.

Amid sunny skies and warm temperatures the Hawks ran into a stifling headwind and rough water on Saturday extending race times by about a minute. The Varsity Lightweight 8 kicked off Saturday's finals with a second place finish to Delaware while avenging last year's Knecht Cup loss to Mercyhurst by 1.1 seconds. The Freshmen Lightweight 8 followed suit finishing second to Delaware while besting heavyweight crews from Marist, Umass, Army, and Lehigh. In the last event of the day the second varsity heavyweights finished 4th behind Temple, Marist and Army, and ahead of Delaware and Drexel.

In Sunday's finals the varsity lightweight 4 started off the day at 7:00 AM with a victory in the petite final over an all-Pennsylvania field of Penn St., Duquesne, Pitt, Lehigh, and Villanova. Next up the Frosh 8 took third behind Marist and GW and ahead of their Dad Vail competition in Army, Delaware, and Lehigh. In the feature event of the day the varsity 8 could not overcome strong rows by Marist, GW, Temple and Army and finished in a disappointing 5th place.

Speaking about the performances of the Varsity and Second Varsity 8s, head coach Drew Hill said that this weekend's results reflected some inconsistencies experienced by the boats due to line-up shifting. "We just weren't able to find the right line-up in either boat this week and it affected our preparation for the races. Marist rowed a great race and GW, Temple, and Army all picked up speed these last three weeks. With four weeks to Dad Vails I am confident we'll find the right line-ups and build off of our early season speed going into the championship."

And peaking at Dad Vails will be very important this year as the racing in all events will be very close. The Varsity Lightweight 4 learned this lesson in their heat race on the wrong side of 1-foot margin at the finish line.

With two shells advancing to the final it was a three boat race between Army, Lafayette and the Hawks with 400 meters left in the race. The Cadets managed to increase their cadence and shoot ahead in the last 300 meters leaving SJU and Lafayette to battle for the second qualifying spot. The Hawks took the advantage briefly, but Lafayette managed one last burst in the final 10 strokes to push their bow ahead of the Hawks at the line. This type of tight racing is expected at all levels on May 13 & 14 at Vails.

"It is really close in the Men's Varsity 8 this year," said Assistant Coach Paul Mullin. "Marietta, Temple, Purdue, FIT, Minnesota, Army and us all have the potential to win the event or be in the petite final. That makes for some great racing. Dad Vails has been our focus since September, and with a great field assembled we are looking forward to the event."