For all the difficulties the men's heavyweight rowing team has faced this season, it may have finally garnered an achievement that will make the Quakers proud.
At the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta - the national championship for rowing - in Camden, NJ this weekend, the Quakers made the Grand Final in the Open Four event, which they ultimately finished in sixth place.
While it may seem like a minor achievement, coach Fred Honebein knows that it bodes well for the future of the program. He recounted a conversation he had with Chris Clark, the head coach at Wisconsin, the winners in the Varsity 8 this weekend.
"It basically starts with one boat," Honebein said. "And when the guys see one boat having success then it's easy for them to buy in to what you're trying to do with the team."
The Open Four consisted of graduated senior Roman Shor, rising juniors Brendan Baker and Derek Gollnitz and rising sophomores Brad Adams and Jason Bernstein, the coxswain. Unfortunately, even though they bested their qualifying time by more than two seconds, they fell short of their competition. Boats from Harvard came in first and third place, while Cornell came in second.
"I was really happy for [the Open Four squad]," Honebein said. "But they were pretty disappointed because they thought they had a chance to go in there and possibly win a medal after the race they had in the semifinal."
Despite the successes of the Open Four, the Varsity Eight continued its struggles, coming in 18th in the field, clocking a time of 6:01.819, the leading cause in Honebein's evaluation of the regatta as "poor."
Honebein points to the team's youth, as well as the successful performance in the Open Four, as signs that the future may be brighter than this season would indicate. The team graduates only two seniors, and only one from the Varsity Eight boat.
Next year, Honebein hopes to have a better retention rate than he experienced the past offseason because "when you have numbers, you have competition. And when you have intra-squad competition, you are able to get results."
Qualification in the Grand Final may not seem like much, but it is a small victory at the end of a trying season. And when attempting to get yourself out of troubling times, every little victory counts.
