Andover Boys Crew’s B1’s delivered an impressive best time of the season at 4:20.1 against Community Rowing Incorporation (CRI), just 0.1 seconds short of taking home a win.
Hoping to shake things up, B1 changed its seating arrangement before heading into the race. Head Coach Stewart MacDonald implemented a bucket rig, meaning that the rowers in seats four and five, Nico Robertson ’15 and Dylan Norris ’16, were both starboards and rowed on the same side of the boat. The positioning was contrary to the traditional alternation of starboards and ports.
The drop in time was encouraging, and the B1 rowers hope to build on their performance this week. With two races left before Interschols, Andover must break its string of second place finishes to be in the running for the championship.
“B1 is full of hardworking rowers who all really want to win. On Saturday we exemplified our dedication and rowed arguably the best race of our season so far. Although it would have felt better to win, CRI is traditionally one of the fastest crews in the nation, so losing to them by only 0.1 seconds showed us that we have the ability to beat any team,” said Nick Faulkner ’16. “We are very ready to win.”
B1 consisted of Faulkner, Norris, Robertson, Chandler Washburn ’16, Ben Hawley ’15, Rob Irvin ’15, Marc Sevastopoulo ’15, Rome Arnold ’14 and coxswain Jake Rauh ’14.
Jacob Kozol ’15 coxed B2 to a convincing ten-second victory in 4:37.3 to continue its undefeated season. The rowers in B2 were Cooper Hurley ’14, Scott Simpson ’14, Jake Taylor ’16, Captain Grant Bitler ’14, Alex Cao ’16, Js Dackiw ’14, Jack Lane ’15 and Andrew Vallejos ’14.
B1 hopes to continue improving while B2 looks to continue its dominant streak. Andover will race against Exeter. B1’s seeding at Interschols depends on its performance this weekend, a loss could put the team in fourth with an extremely difficult heat.
