On May 5, Andover Girls Crew faced two strong teams, CRI and Saint Paul’s. One week later, the team rowed against archrival Exeter and Tabor. The G1 boat came in third place with a time of 5:55.45, 12 seconds behind St. Paul’s and 18 seconds behind CRI. The G2 boat took second place with a time of 6:00.39, eight seconds behind CRI’s time of 5:52.76, but nine seconds ahead of St. Paul’s. “I think that we did really well,” said Amanda Krakauer ’15, a rower on G2. “We only lost by a few seconds to the fifth fastest club crew in the nation. After Sunday, we are looking really good for NEIRAS, and our boat is hoping to medal. Our boat is generally very powerful, but we are still working on keeping the boat stable and maintaining good technique.” Qiqi Ren ’15, a G1 rower, said, “We were racing two of the strongest teams out there, and it showed us that we needed to work more on our endurance.” This past Saturday, the girls raced against Exeter and Tabor. The G1 boat rowed the 1650m race in 5:37.03, coming in third, 11 seconds behind Tabor and 19 seconds behind Exeter. “We definitely expected better from this past Saturday’s race,” Ren said. “The circumstances were unique because we were missing our stroke, who had another commitment and couldn’t make it to the race. We had to change the lineup and… our technique was messy and our rhythm was off, so we’re now trying to work on perfecting technique.” The G2, G3 and G4 boats all came in second place behind Exeter, whose strong lineup pulled through, narrowly outracing the Andover boats in each contest. “The opening race of the day was the most exciting, for Andover’s fourth boat rowed even with Exeter all most all the way down the course,” said Coach Joe Bouscaren. “There were times when Andover appeared to be gaining the upper hand, then Exeter would counter. They raced boat-to-boat all the way to the end with Exeter squeaking out a two second victory after close to six minutes of racing,” he added. Andover’s second, third and fifth boats all secured victory over Tabor but fell to a strong and deep Exeter program. Andover’s first boat came off the starting line very well, as it has in the majority of its races this season, but was unable to row cleanly in the very rough, tailwind conditions. As the girls lost boat speed and rhythm, both Exeter and Tabor pulled ahead for wins. The girls have one more regatta before NEIRAs against NMH this Saturday. “This week practices will be focused on balance and clean blade work in rough water and learning to remain composed under all race situations,” said Bouscaren. “We have good athletes and horsepower throughout our program but we need to row technically better, especially in rough water. I plan to make the most of our last few weeks leading up to NEIRAs and am confident we can take a significant step up in boat speed as the girls learn to master balancing the ‘eight’ with more consistency.”
