Despite struggling in its scrimmage this past weekend against Phillips Exeter Academy’s experienced team, Andover Girls Crew heads into its final race of the season against Exeter with its head held high after gaining more race experience under its belt.
According to Kelly Bu ’23, because Andover’s team is filled with many novice rowers, the scrimmage against Exeter was a chance to learn.
“Exeter has a really strong program, and there’s a lot of returners this year so they’re all pretty experienced, versus us and our girls program where there’s a lot of new rowers and a lot of returning varsity girls have not rowed this year, so that makes it a bit more difficult, but we’re getting there,” said Bu.
As a coxswain, Chloe Rhee ’24 found that watching her rowers against Exeter helped her determine what her boat needs to do in order to improve.
Rhee said, “As a coxswain, I watch what happens, we track peoples rate—how fast they’re going in the boat—and you also can watch their form… I looked at what we did this week, and noticed that we needed to work on our starts and make sure that when we’re tired that our form doesn’t go all out of control.”
According to Bu, the odds were stacked against Andover heading into the meet, but the team still managed to maintain a positive attitude throughout the race.
“I think we all knew the level that Exeter races at because we know that they have a bunch of returners, and we’re a bunch of new rowers and we haven’t had a lot of training time… and I think [our mentality going into the meet was] like, ‘okay probably know we’re going to lose, so it’s just a matter of [limiting how] little we’re going to lose by,’” said Bu.
According to Emily Turnbull ’24, the team has been training hard and looks forward to bringing team spirit and enthusiasm into its meet next week.
“I’m confident that we’re going to do really well in the next race; whether or not we actually win is up in the air, but I’m confident that we’re going to pull really hard and do well,” said Turnbull.
Heading into its final race of the season, Andover seeks redemption against Exeter this Saturday.
