On Saturday Crew raced at home against Hanover and Bedford. All 12 boats had the opportunity to race, with all except for G4 defeating both Hanover and Bedford.
Dean Burton ’26 noted the celebration after the race and the great energy surrounding the team’s success.
“It was really fun because everyone won. And we all jumped in the river after, cause it’s tradition to throw your coxswain in if you win and then everyone went in the water after. And it was a really nice day out which made for great racing conditions,” said Burton.
Leading up to the race, G1 practiced with the boys team, pivoting its start sequence. Jill Reichenbach ’24 shared that the boat shifted from trying to drive up speed, to getting their movements together.
“We had a new start plan, and so we were all excited to try that out… On Wednesday, we practiced with the boys’ team and Coach [Taylor] Washburn was giving us some advice, and we just changed our sequencing, so instead of three quarters, half, half, we did three quarters, half, lengthen, and lengthen, so we’re focusing [now] instead of pushing the rate on syncing up together to match up our catch times as a team,” said Reichenbach.
Going into Saturday, Caroline Romano ’26 shared that both the nice weather and newfound bonds with teammates made everyone optimistic going into it. She highlighted the team’s energy and support for one another.
“We were all definitely very excited going into it. The weather was very nice, which we were really happy to have. I feel like everyone was excited. We were all bonding with our boats. Especially after people had started racing everybody was cheering for everyone like watching everybody. We cheer when we take the boats down to the water for each other and that’s our last good luck to each other,” said Romano
During the race, the G1 dedicates each stroke to a specific boat member and their coach. Romano shared that they use this as motivation to increase their pressure, which in this race helped them edge out in front of the other boats.
“In my specific race, we take a few strokes for everybody in the boat. So, we have a stroke for each person and then a stroke for our coach. And we like to bring up our press a little bit so that we try and have the boat go faster. It felt like that’s where we made the jump to start pulling away from the other boats,” said Romano.
Romano highlighted G2 for their consistent performance so far. She noted the potential they have for the rest of the season.
“I’m really proud of the G2 this year because they have been really, really good. They won their first race against Kent, and then they did really well in their second race. They didn’t win, but they did look really, really well, and they continue to do well this week. And they look like a really strong boat, and I’m really proud of them, and I’m excited for the rest of their season,” said Romano.
Reichenbach mentioned the team and specifically G1’s goal to work on team chemistry. She noted the importance of learning how to move together and the role that team bonds play in that.
“We’re just going to keep working on the team chemistry and syncing up with the person in front of us. Learning how to move from individuals to one team, one boat is going to be our big focus for the season,” said Reichenbach.
According to Romano, some ways in which the team and G1 works on its bonding is through boat meetings and dinners. This creates an open dialogue about rowing, and also helps the team get to know each other on a personal level outside of crew.
“Sometimes we’ll do boat dinners and boat bonding. We all sit and talk to each other so we all feel like we really know each other. Sometimes we’ll do that, but then also at practice we have meetings with our whole group after practice, and so we just air anything and if we think that ended on a bad note, we’ll talk again later once everyone has cooled off from the row,” said Romano.
Looking ahead to the next race, Burton highlighted the importance of this race against St. Paul’s. He shared Boys Crew’s goal to work on its mental strength.
“Our next race is at St. Paul’s, and that’s going to be a really big race because they were really good last year and we’re getting to work on, even if we’re down off the start, having a stone mentality and just coming back home,” said Burton.
Crew will face St. Paul’s away on Saturday.
