NY State Championship Results

NEW YORK ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS

WOMEN TAKE SILVER – MEN QUALIFY FOR GRAND FINAL

May 1-2, 2010

The Kings Point Varsity Rowing team had a strong showing at the New York Collegiate Rowing Championships. Kings Point brought home a silver medal in the Women’s Pair, a sixth place with the Novice Men’s Four and a 2^nd place in the Men’s Varsity Eight Petite Final.

The New York Championships attracts 28 of the best New York college teams from Buffalo to Long Island. Nine-hundred athletes compete for Championships titles in men’s and women’s Varsity and Novice categories.

The Women’s Varsity Pair of Anna Simons and Kacey Rohloff won the regatta in 2009 and came back this year to do the same. The Kings Point rowers came into the regatta ranked first based on strong results from previous competitions. The crew set to work early in the race by capturing the lead in the first few strokes of the race and refused to relinquish that lead until the last few strokes of the race when the Kings Pointers misjudged the finish and stopped rowing before the finish line. Hofstra took advantage of the misstep and rowed past them to win by .8 seconds. Simons and Rohloff were clearly disappointed when they realized how the mistake had cost them. The crew will be vying for Gold when it races next week at the Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia.

The Men’s Freshman crew of Coxswain Greg Acker, Stroke Brendan Rohr ’13, 3- Garrett Poncin ’13, 2-Chris Murphy ’13, and Bow- Brad Wood felt that they had redeemed themselves from last week when they were unable to qualify for the final at the Metro Championships. The crew rowed strongly in the heat and as Coxswain Greg Acker said “they coasted to the finish because they had no problem qualifying and I wanted them rested for the final”. Qualifying for the Grand final, the crew rowed well and finished in the sixth position. “They really had a great race and posted their best time of the season. I’m very pleased with how they are coming together and improving in leaps and bounds” commented Coach Derek Hartwick of his crew.

“This is the first spring that we have competed with a Varsity Men’s Eight and the one we have rowing is really a great crew” commented Hartwick. Coming off a first and a fourth place finishes in the previous two races, the crew was hoping to crack the top six and qualify for the Grand Final. “It was not their best race in the heats but today they really came together and rowed a wonderful final race by taking 2^nd”, commented Coach Daniel Udeanu on the crews’ performance in the Petite final. The Petite final is for the 7^th through 12^th place crews from the heats. The Kings Point crew of Coxswain David Wong ‘13, Stroke Steven Jones ‘10, Charles Waters ’10, Thomas Gambill ’12, Dustin Downing ’13, Connan Ingham ’12, Sam Diedrick ’10, Frank Osborne ’12, and Kyle O’Connor ’10 were able to jump out to an early lead with close rival the University of Rochester. The two crews were able to hold the two top spots from the first strokes until the finish with Rochester holding a small lead but with the tenacious Kings Pointers not letting Rochester row away and certainly not relinquishing any lead they had over the rest of the field. At the finish there was only a five second margin separating Kings Point and Rochester. Kings point posted a time of 6:24 for the 2000 meter distance.

The rowing Mariners take to the water again on May 7-8 in the Dad Vail Regatta. The Dad Vail Regatta is considered to be the National Championship for the small colleges and Universities and will be the last race for the Spring 2010 season.