Varsity Rowing Murphy Cup Results

Kings Point Varsity Crew

United States Merchant Marine Academy

Team Results

Murphy Cup Regatta – Philadelphia, PA

April 3, 2010

After a successful outing last week against Manhattan College and Sarah Lawrence, the Kings Point Rowing team met stiffer competition at the Murphy Cup Regatta in Philadelphia. A total of thirty-five teams competed in the regatta with over one-hundred and forty crews amongst all of the events.

The Freshman-Novice crew of Coxswain Jessica Willey, Stroke Chris Murphy ’13, 3-Brad Wood, 2-Brendan Rohr’13, and Garrett Poncin had great practice sessions during the week but unfortunately did not have their best performance and missed qualifying for the final. Despite clocking a time of 7:45 for the mile and a quarter, the team was unable to qualify for the final.

The Men’s Varsity squad chose to put all of their eggs in one basket in only rowing the Men’s Varsity Eight event and not the Fours event as they usually do. It turned out in their favor. Coach Derek Hartwick and Daniel Udeanu thought it would be best to focus on one event for the Regatta. Despite only having one practice in the ‘eight’ during the previous week, the crew raced very well and improved from the heat to the final.

With poor rowing conditions over the last week, the team has had difficulty getting enough rowing time to build some racing speed. Despite this adversity, the crew of Coxswain David Wong ‘13, Stroke Thomas Gambill ’12, Charles Waters ’10, Connan Ingham ’12, Dustin Downing ’13, Steven Jones ’10, Sam Diedrick ’10, Frank Osborne ’12, and Kyle O’Connor ’10 were able to record the best performance for the Mariners in this event. The crew rowed to a time of 6:25 in the heat. “It was the first race at the 2000 meter distance for David Wong but he did a fantastic job steering and leading his crew, especially in the final” commented Hartwick following the race.

The crew earned a spot in the Petit Final and finished a respectable 5^th spot. The crew and Coach Udeanu were pleased with the results and the progress made so far this season. Coach Udeanu commented “They rowed very well and were pushing lots of water in the final. We are going to get much faster.”

The team competes next week at the prestigious Knecht Cup in Cherry Hill, NJ. Over one hundred teams are expected and the competition will be very high level.