Back from Nationals!   Having done this twice now, I wanted to share the experience, from my perspective, with those of you who couldn’t make it.

W-L took two boats this year, the Men’s Freshman 8, on the strength of their strong 4th place finish at the 2011 VASRA Ted Phoenix Regatta (.2 seconds out of third, and less than one second out of second place), and the Men’s Junior 8, the 2011 VASRA State Gold Medalists, and last year’s fifth place finisher in the finals at SRAA Nationals in Saratoga, New York.  This year’s regatta site, on Cooper Lake in Camden, New Jersey, was a surprisingly pleasant venue (surprising to me, at least – from viewing the site from above via Google Earth, I’d gotten the idea it was in an industrial park).  We (parents, coaches and crew) stayed at the Cherry Hill Holiday Inn, about 1 ½ miles from the regatta site as the crow flies, and about 5 as the car drives, since we quickly discovered that being able to turn left is apparently viewed as a very precious commodity in Camden, and therefore the community is most economical in its use.  Basically, in Camden one must turn right to turn left (insert political joke here).  Still, we were only about 10-15 minutes away.  Parking was free, too, a nice change from Saratoga.  Most of the crew arrived between 3-4 pm on Thursday, and we drove straight to the regatta site.  The boys set up the tents, and are to be congratulated for finding a primo spot under some trees (for which we were increasingly grateful as the temperatures hit the high 80’s on Friday and Saturday), and close by the finish line.  We parents left the boys with the coaches at the site, where they rigged the boats and spent some time on the water, while we went to check in to the hotel.  The next morning breakfast – juice, bananas, muffins, etc -  was served in the Killaleas’ room, then we took the crews out to the regatta site.  The freshman 8 had a 10 am heat, while the junior 8 rowed their heat at 11:55.  The freshmen had a tough event – only two boats advanced from each of five heats to the semis, and the W-L boat was rowing in a heat with Central Catholic (the boat which eventually placed fourth in the finals) and St. Augustine, the boat which took fourth at Stotesbury the previous week.  The boys rowed hard, but as might have been expected Central Catholic and St. Augustine grabbed the top two spots to move on to the semis.  The junior 8 had an easier time of it, finishing first in their heat, a boat length ahead of New York’s Chaminade High School, who had posted the fastest time in the Stotesbury time trials and eventually finished fourth in the finals there.  Also advancing was Florida’s Lake Brantley, the FSRA silver medalists.  Thomas Jefferson’s boat was a full 10 seconds behind our boys, in fourth place.  Everyone went back to the hotel for some R and R, and though the junior 8 was forbidden to use the pool by the coaches, the freshmen took full advantage of the facility.  That evening we took all the boys back to the lake for a final row, then went to the shopping area across from the hotel for some dinner, the boys splitting between Panera and Baja Fresh. 

Saturday the junior 8 semifinal heat was at 9:20 am, so we had to get them to the site by 7:30 - since the freshmen didn’t have to get there quite so early, they got to sleep a little later.  One of the interesting things about Nationals is that schools are represented that you’ve never heard of.  A St. Ignatius High School (from Cleveland, I later learned) was rowing in the junior 8 heat – they weren’t at Stotesbury, and I didn’t know they existed until Thursday morning, but their boat had posted the fastest time in the heats, beating St. Joseph Prep’s boat by ¾ of a second.  Sure enough, they came in first, about 2 seconds ahead of our boat. La Salle High School, which finished second at Stotesbury, and which might have expected to have been a threat here, couldn’t keep up, and finished fourth, losing by open water to our boat.  The surprise was Canisius High School (Buffalo, NY), which sprinted past W-L to take second place by about two seats. I think our guys hadn’t expected such a strong race from this boat, and got rattled when it started walking them (Joe Crandall told me W-L had been leading for the about the first 700 yards).  I’m not sure any of them was pleased with the race, but they’d still qualified for the finals, which were scheduled for 2:05 pm.  We all went back to the hotel so they could relax and we could check out.  We returned to Cooper Lake around noon – Derek had the boys in a circle under one of the tents, just shooting the breeze, trying to keep them calm, I suppose, while the rest of us tried to give them some space.  Eventually they all went off to the launching dock area – I’d accompanied them to see them shove off for the previous two races, but thought they were probably so keyed up they’d prefer less of a crowd.  I watched some of the other finals, and saw some amazingly tightly rowed races – third place in the final for the Women’s Freshman 8 was decided by two one-thousandths (that’s .002) of a second. The level of oarsmanship at this regatta is truly impressive.  I also saw a heartbreaking incident in the Women’s Junior 8 final, when one of the boats (from Loyola Academy I believe) suffered an equipment failure at the start of the race which made it almost impossible to steer the boat.  We spectators first noticed this when the boat, which was in the 6th lane, yawed all the way across the course into the first lane.  They eventually made it down the course in that lane, rowing by sixes, and we all applauded when they crossed the finish line, but of course all chance for a medal had been lost.  This was the event before the Men’s Junior 8 final, which went off at 2:15, about 10 minutes late.  Because of their third place finish in the semis W-L was rowing in the first lane (closest to the spectators); St. Joseph Prep and St. Ignatius were rowing in lanes 4 and 3, respectively, while Canisus was in lane 5.

Early on it looked remarkably even, though Pine Crest High School (Ft. Lauderdale, Fl) in the 6th lane, which had posted the slowest time in the semis, quickly fell out of contention, and eventually finished 6th, 15 seconds behind Chaminade in 5th place.  In the last 500 meters it became a battle between St. Ignatius and St. Joseph, though they were unable to pull away from W-L, who stayed within a half length of them.  Alex told me later that he had the sense they were moving up on the first place boats during their sprint, and might have closed the gap if they’d had another hundred meters or so.  In any event, they were ready for Canisius this time, who could not pull even with them, and finished two seconds back in 4th.  W-L’s time of 4:41.26 was two seconds (about half a boat length) behind first place St. Joseph, who nipped St. Ignatius by .05 seconds; about the length of a bow ball, and almost exactly the amount by which the W-L Junior 8 beat Absegami High School in the 2010 Finals – and just like then, this time they also beat a school in the finals which had bested them in an earlier heat.  Their time in the Junior 8 finals would also have placed them fourth in the Men’s 2V final, and fourth in the Petit Final of the Men’s First Varsity boats, beating Westfield’s and Thomas Jefferson’s (yes, that Thomas Jefferson) times in that event.  It was a magnificent race, and the boys should be proud of it and their accomplishment.

Thanks to all the parents and coaches – Derek, Jim, and Wilson – who made the trip, and who made the trip possible.  A particular shout out to the freshmen boys and their parents, who stuck around to support the junior 8 and help pack the tents and gear, and to my in-laws, Robert and Kristi Fadel, who made this trip from Boston for the second year in a row (Derek ran into my mother in law in the hotel lobby, and had a puzzled minute or two when he knew he knew her, but not from where).  My daughter Talia enjoyed hanging with Matt Zetkulic’s sisters, and I think has definitely got the crew bug.  It was also nice to see alumna Sophie Jenkins and former coach Davis Colwell.  Let’s do this again next year!

By Jeff Beranek