By Coach Regan Broderick _________________________________________________________

"The start of a race, especially for novice crews, is always unexpected. The officials barely have all boats aligned when they quickly yell “Attention, row!” (Waiting too long could mean the boats drift out of alignment.) Few crews are ever ready.

The Lower Merion girls’ Novice and Freshman eights, however, were both more prepared at the start than their competition, and both eights got off to great starts! In fact, the JV rowers waiting for their race praised the Freshmen eight for its powerful start.

The Novice eight raced first, setting a controlled pace for the fleet coming through Strawberry Mansion bridge. Even from the finish line, it was clear that coxswain Andrea Batt was keeping the eight tucked nicely into Lane 3. By the 750 meter mark, spectators were able to see rowers Leah Greenspan, Marta Bean, Lauren Maslanka, Helen Lesser, Morgan Gerwitz, Lexi Miller-Golub, Julia Policastro and Mariclair Vaillant take a power 20 to pull ahead of the competition. By the wire, spectators and coaches were jumping up and down at the sight of Lower Merion walking to open water on the rest of the crews. Through the island, the girls kept control and power, gliding to victory with a time of 6:04 in their very first race. Having more energy to row through the bridge, the girls finally stopped to cheer and congratulate each other downriver of Columbia Bridge.

The Freshman eight raced half an hour later. After their strong start, the technically competent freshmen fell victim to a heat of fast crews. Coxed by Rachael Bowen, the Freshman eight accomplished all of its goals in the challenging event, remaining focused, catching together and going STRAIGHT down Lane 1! While this eight came in 5th place out of 5, its time was only 10 seconds off Lower Merion’s Novice eight, a mere boatlength of open water. With that time, rowers Maddy Carroll, Nora Lashner, Sasha Levyn, Anna Corrigan, Bekkah Gross, Arianna Flood, Julia Vresilovic and Elizabeth Moosburner would have rowed to second place in the Novice eight's heat. Not bad for the first race of the season!

Here’s to two weeks of hard work to get these girls even faster for Flick #4!"