Varsity Rowing / Power Squadron to Mystic Coastweeks Regatta

Mystic Coastweeks Regatta – September 16-19, 2011
This was the Rowing Team’s first regatta of the 2011 fall season. Twenty-nine rowers got underway Friday evening aboard Liberator, Growler and Summerwind with the crews of each vessel. The convoy arrived in Mystic at 0930 on Saturday morning. Saturday activities included touring the Mystic Seaport Museum, watching the Olympic team competition, and a training session in preparation for the regatta on Sunday.
This year was the largest competitive team that Kings Point has had in it’s seven year attendance at the regatta. Twenty-nine athletes competed with seven crews and brought home medals in two of the three race categories. The Coastweeks regatta is the first race of the fall “Head Style” season. Crews raced the distance of a mile-and-quarter in alternating fashion and do not know who won until the individual crew’s times are calculated following the race.
The women’s Double of Brooke Mueller 2014 and Brannon Niblock 2015 had a tremendous first race as they raced to a second place finish in what was a close race with Coast Guard. Coast Guard had a twenty-five second margin over Kings Point who had a three second lead over another Coast Guard entry. “Niblock is new to the sport and is still learning how to row and race. This is a great first result since the crew had only six practices as a crew” commented Coach Derek Hartwick. The crew will have two weeks to prepare for its’ next contest when it competes in the Textile River Regatta in Massachusetts on October 2.
The Men’s team launched an armada of five crews for the Men’s Open Four race. While Coast Guard captured the top spot in the race, the top Kings Point crew was only ten seconds off the lead. The men’s team showed great depth with both the top two crews placing ahead of Coast Guard’s second best crew and the additional three crews performing well despite their inexperience. The top crew of Coxswain Giuseppe Niosi ‘14, Stroke-John Dohring ‘14, 3-Connan Ingham ‘12, 2-Sean Welsh ’14 and Bow-Austin Boonyachai ‘15 kept a pace of thirty-six stokes per minute for the mile-and-quarter. This slight deficit off first place was nearly overshadowed by the even smaller three second margin between the two top Kings Point crews.
The relatively inexperienced women’s crew of Stroke-Diane Ormond ‘15, 3-Brannon Niblock ‘15, 2-Leena Yi ‘15 and Bow-Mo’ana Kawatachi ‘15 rowed well for their first race but came up short in the women’s open four event. Placing 6th behind some seasoned varsity crews did not deter the crew form promising that they would be competitive in the Novice Women’s event in two weeks. “They are going to do very well in the novice race at the Textile Regatta on October 2.” commented Coach Hartwick.
With two weeks to train, the team will then prepare for the next regatta in Lowell Massachusetts. The Textile River Regatta is the 2nd largest fall regatta and includes over 30 colleges from the northeast states. The Kings Point team has traditionally performed well at this regatta and hopes to do the same this year.