The crew team swept the board at the Gifford Pinchot Sprints Regatta on Saturday in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. The team took home gold in all nine events that it entered a boat in, and both the men and women took home the overall points trophy.
The two men’s pair boats got the team started hot in its first event of the morning, placing first and third. The “A” boat of sophomores Duncan White and Owen Piskorowski finished with a time of 7:34, 25 seconds ahead of second-place Susquehanna.
Lafayette boats comprised two of the three entries into the event.
“It is kind of nice to be on the course with your teammates because I think it takes a bit of the edge off,” White said. “It feels a little more like practice, less like that tense race environment.”
The men’s and women’s novice four boats also won their races by comfortable margins. Junior Ashleigh Anzevino, sophomore Kelsey Donatelli, freshmen Ally Krohg and Christina Kingan, along with freshman coxswain Maddie Malone beat second-place finishers Scranton “B” by over a minute and a half with a time of 7:56 in the five-boat event. The men won their five-boat race by a similar margin, with senior Jacob Moldover, freshmen Ryan Delmore, Emery Castimore and Harrison Zoller, along with freshman coxswain Nicole Bagdasarian racing the course in 6:58.
White noted that this regatta served as a “speed check” for all of the boats.
“It’s coming up into the championship season and we’re trying to just get a sense of where we’re at,” White said. “I know that was our goal in the pair was to just row hard and just have a good piece.”
He added that after the regatta, the team would “see where we’re at” to evaluate practice times based on the team’s results.
Lafayette took first and second in the women’s varsity four, with the first boat of juniors Ellie Walsh and Noni Lorentzen and sophomores Elle Lansing, Lili Gerstenschlager and coxswain Annabelle Witkowski finishing first out of six boats in 7:28. The second boat of seniors Rose Broderick and Julia Bavaro and sophomores Peyton Schreiber, Anne Wang and coxswain Bella Bursor came in at 8:07 with a comfortable 21-second margin over third place.
The men’s varsity four boat also won its race by over 30 seconds, setting a blistering pace of 6:46 in the six-team event.
Although fewer boats were entered in the eight-man events, the women’s and men’s novice and varsity eight boats all took home victories.
The team is gearing up for the Dad Vail Regatta in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which will take place next weekend. Both White and Broderick emphasized the importance of this week’s training in preparing for the regatta, where the team will compete against some of the best crew programs in the country.
“Now that we’re getting closer to Dad Vails, we’re going to start working more on skill, so trying to find as much speed as we can within the specific lineups that we have,” Broderick said. “Now that our fitness has peaked, we’re also going to start to taper next week, so bring down our intensity so that we’re ready for the race by the weekend.”
“I think to make the grand final would be huge for us, considering that we just started rowing this lineup together this season,” White said. “Obviously a medal would be great, but I think being able to go and have a great piece at the Vails and race against some of the best crews in the region is really exciting.”
Disclaimer: Business Manager Jacob Moldover ’24 is a member of the crew team. He did not contribute writing or reporting.
