During this past weekend’s Kent Regatta, which is one of the team’s most anticipated races of the year, Andover Boys Crew fell to Kent in each race. The B1 boat trailed Kent’s 5:00.3 time with a time of 5:04.4, B2 behind Kent’s 5:04.7 time with 5:20.3, and B3 followed Kent’s 5:14.9 time with a time of 5:22.2. The team’s record now stands at 0-2.
According to Zev Barden ’20, Kent is the most challenging opponent the team will race this season.
Barden said, “Kent is quite simply the toughest opponent we face all year. It is a race we both look forward to and dread. All of our crews really rowed well, but in the end, they are plain and simply really really fast.”
Despite the fact that the team has lost each of its races, the team enjoyed success in other aspects of the race.
Henry Hearle ’20 said, “This week we worked on the first 100 strokes of the race, and I think we executed those strokes well, but Kent pulled away fairly early and it was a very hard mental game not being able to see the other crew next to us.”
In its first two races of the season, Andover has faced two of its most challenging competitors of the entire season, according to Hearle.
Hearle said, “Both Kent and Salisbury are notoriously strong crews so everyone knew that these first two races were going to be a difficult start to the season, and not to mention that we raced both teams away… [and] were both about a three hour drive away. Now that we are going to be home for the remaining races of our season I know that our team will want our first wins even more.”
Barden added, “For a sport like crew and a season structured the way ours is, with our two toughest opponents as our first two races, I wouldn’t say our team has too much to be nervous about going forward. The boys team in particular set some very specific goals for what we wanted to work towards, and this weekend we met a lot of them. We definitely got faster over this week and we hope to continue that trend.”
Andover will race Hingham High, Boston Latin School, and Boston College High School next weekend.
