by Tom Eichler and Ruby Lyon
The New York State Championships was a challenging weekend for our student-athletes, but ultimately a rewarding one. As one of 72 teams, Row New York made up 13 of the 604 crews. Save for some brief rain and strong wind, Saturday’s weather provided beautiful conditions for the time trails. By the second day winds were whipping up the lake and made racing unsafe for finals. By 11am, all races were canceled. Some Row New York crews were unable to compete on Sunday, and results were taken from the time trials held on Saturday. The event served as an important lesson to always race time trials like they are the finals, and our crews did just that! For a full list of results, visit Row2K.
Notable finishes:
The Queens Varsity 2
Gigi and Kristal, current seniors, came in 4th place overall. They wrapped up their final States appearance with a challenging race filled with some mixed emotions as they realized their many meters rowed together would be coming to an end. They were happy, however, to come away with a silver medal as the second place club!
“We have years of experience of rowing together and that helped a lot. Not only have we had a good time together, but the chemistry we share and the bond we’ve grown through our years of friendship helped as well.” – Gigi, Queens varsity rowers
The Manhattan Girls JV 4+
Ultimately the girls finished 17th out of 42 crews in the event and had a good row in what were very tough conditions on Sunday morning. They did an excellent job as a young crew in truly adverse conditions.
The Manhattan Girls Novice 4+
The girls placed 2nd in the Petite finals, and 11th overall out of 23 crews. They raced well and were feeling good after adjusting from a difficult time trial.
The Queens Varsity 4+
This Queens team placed 18th out of 42 total competitors and were ready to improve upon that result. With their finals canceled, the crew walked away knowing their performance in the Saturday time trial stood as a respectable finish in a deep field.
Other Medals:
The Manhattan Boys 2V 8+ placed 8th out of 11 crews in the time trial. They looked to improve on their time but were unable to race in the final due to weather. Because of their efforts on Saturday, the boys finished with a Bronze medal for the third place club.
“You have to go out and fight for every inch, every stroke, and fight for the whole race. Conditions aren’t the best, races are getting canceled, but we made it to finals because we fought as a team and stuck together.” – Emmanuel, Manhattan boys varsity
The Manhattan Girls V8+ placed 9th out of 15 crews after a well rowed time trial. Pushing through Sunday’s weather, the girls finished as the third place club and earned a Bronze medal.
“It was a lot of fun. I was looking forward to having a very direct piece, very powerful, and going for everything we worked for this past winter. Our piece wasn’t completely what we hoped for but we got most of it and we had a good time so I’m satisfied. We made it to petite finals out of 43 boats so it was an insane race.” – Celia, Manhattan girls varsity coxswain
The Queens JV 8+ also faced the toughest conditions of the regatta on Sunday morning, and performed well, placing 7th out of thirteen total crews. They earned a Silver medal as the second place club.
For our novice group, this was their last race of the Spring season and a great way to close out their year. Both students and staff are excited for their transition to varsity this Summer.
As always, a big thank you goes out to all of the parents and spectators who helped support our crews this weekend! A special thank you to Queens varsity member, Alina Siminiouk, for capturing the weekend through lovely photography and quotes. We now look forward to this coming weekend where our varsity crews will be competing at the USRowing Northeast Youth Championships. Let’s go Row New York!
