Andover Girls Crew showed improvement this weekend in the regatta against Northfield Mount Herman. The G2 boat finished first, its first win of the season, and G1 lost by a 10-second gap. The G3 and G4 boats also won their races, bringing Andover its first overall win of the season at the final home race of the season. Alec Kingston ’14 said, “I definitely think the team has improved; we’ve had lots of jumbled line ups with the boats and such and so it that sense it’s hard to judge but I think in each of our boats there are solid girls and the boats are split up really evenly.” G2 pulled ahead of NMH by seven seconds with a time of 5:53.6. In the G1 race, NMH, defeated Andover with a time of 5:55.65. However, the G1 boat was missing its Captain Emily Adler ’12 who could not compete on Saturday due to medical issues. Adler said, “I got the privilege… to get to watch the girls’ race from the launch. Win or lose, I noticed in each boat, bow to stern, everyone was working hard. I could see in their faces that no one was there for the ride, and every girl was pulling her weight to make the boat move fast. I am so proud of my team.” Adler’s enthusiasm demonstrates her belief in the team’s progress, after having to rebuild the team this season with only two returning varsity rowers. Not only has the team had a fresh start this year, but there has also been a lot of movement of the lineups. G1 rower Willa Tellekson-Flash ’14 said, “The boat lineups have continued to change and we had a new lineup again this week, since Adler and Jordan Johnson [’13] are out. Alec Kingston, who stroked this week, started this season as a novice but has worked really hard and improved rapidly.” Tellekson-Flash said, “We were all really motivated going into this race and everyone pulled their hardest, but NMH was stronger than we were. I think it was a race that went better technically than I had hoped, which showed in that we didn’t lose them until the end of the race, but our set can still improve and that will help a lot.” Commenting on the day overall, G1 rower Kingston, said, “We gave everything we could. As the seniors last home race, I know that we really did it for them, and unfortunately it didn’t end up in our favor, but I think we are all content with how hard we did work for it.” Next Saturday, Andover will compete in its last race of the season, Interschols.
