The crew team had an extremely successful fall season, with at least one Lafayette boat winning a medal in every regatta that the team attended. Highlights of the season include first place win at the world’s largest regatta, the Head of the Charles, as well as a gold-winning performance at the Frostbite regatta.
“I think our fall season went really, really well … Especially our women’s team, they did amazing,” sophomore Aaron Sigmond-Warner said.
With the end of the semester comes time for a new executive board for the team, and the new elects have many goals in mind to continue their strong year.
Junior Kendall Lamm, who has been a key member of the team as coxswain for the men’s boat, was elected as the new president. Lamm’s teammates commended her for being organized, skillful and committed to the team.
“It is a privilege to have been selected as the President by my teammates, who are among the most competitive and dedicated student-athletes I have ever met,” Lamm wrote in an email.
Sigmond-Warner will serve as the club’s next vice president. Sigmond-Warner said that, like other clubs, the crew team is still experiencing issues getting the membership numbers back up to what they were before COVID. However, the young members of the team were eager to get more involved in the club.
Junior Rose Broderick will be taking the role of women’s captain, and rounding out the rest of the executive board will be all freshmen. Hannah Bazylevsky is the new secretary, Peyton Schreiber is the treasurer, Ryan Comisky is the men’s captain and Christina Kouyoumdji is the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) chair.
The team recently finished their intense “intro to winter” training, which Lamm said they shortened to one week this year rather than two in order to focus on finals.
“Our rowers have been training hard all fall and can use a break after a great season,” Lamm wrote.
While they are very competitive, the flexibility of crew being a club sport allows members to participate as much as they are able to.
“We have people who come every day, people who never come, and we just have a great time and we have success, too,” Sigmond-Warner said.
Lamm hopes the team will remain competitive with the nation’s top teams, build their roster through recruitment and have fun while they do it.
“Crew is the ultimate team sport. Although we strive to beat our opponents in every race, we can always improve our times and techniques,” Lamm wrote. “We’re a competitive team of athletes, students, and friends, who are lucky to have one of the country’s great coaches as a mentor.”
Both Lamm and Sigmond-Warner said that the team will continue training hard throughout the winter before setting their sights on the spring season finale, the highly competitive Dad Vail Regatta. Lamm said that at the Dad Vail, the team strives to medal in every race they compete in.
In addition, Sigmond-Warner said this new executive board wants to build the culture back to something similar to what it was before the pandemic.
“I think we definitely had a lot of success on the water, but ever since COVID, upperclassmen were telling me, it’s just tough to get back to a normal team environment, trying to have events and figure out new things to do,” he said. “I think that’s kind of one of the better parts of it being a club, student-ran thing, is that we get to control it however we want. And while that may bring us challenges, it makes it a lot easier for us to mold what we want the team culture to be. And I think that’s something [Lamm] and I are going to focus on.”
