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A warm and sunny Sunday afternoon at the Textile River Regatta in Lowell, Massachusetts proved to be the perfect time and place for the men’s and women’s crew teams to begin its fall season. 

The women’s team sent out three boats, one club and two open 8’s. The club shell came in 11th out of 30 boats and the two open 8’s came in 8th and 16th in a field of 20. These results left Head Coach Beth Emery and the rowers with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.

"We consider this a successful opener for the fall season," Emery said. "We’ve been on the water for a month, but this was our first opportunity to race against anyone other than ourselves and learn through competition. I think it was a great first outing." 

The men sent out an open 4-man shell and two open 8’s. The 4-man shell finished in 6th place out of 36 boats. The only boat to finish ahead of them that they will face in head-to-head competition in the spring was the Trinity College 4. 

Wesleyan’s varsity 8, which returns six rowers and a coxswain from last year’s team, finished 7th out of 18 boats. The Cardinal boat came in just a couple of seconds behind Trinity and Coast Guard, both of whom Wesleyan will row against in the spring. 

Head Coach Phil Carney and the team’s captains said they were encouraged by the team’s success.

"This race shows that we can compete with all the boats we will have to face in the spring," said Captain Kevin McDermott ’01. "We had fun this weekend and took great pleasure in wasting Williams by 15 seconds. They beat us last year and this shows that we’ve improved." 

Wesleyan received a pleasant surprise from the men’s novice rowers, who for the most part were rowing competitively for the first time. They finished 1st out of 8 boats. 

The overall sense from both teams after the weekend competition was that the regatta was successful in determining where Wesleyan crew needs work and fine-tuning. If it’s true that practice makes perfect, then this race was certainly a good practice towards future perfection in competition.

A more important race comes this weekend when Wesleyan competes at home in Middletown in the Head of the Connecticut Regatta. Both Wesleyan’s men and women teams will look to repeat impressive outings from last fall’s Head of the Connecticut against a range of tough competition. 

"We’re definitely looking forward to next weekend when we race at home," said Rachael Seevers ’01. "If we’re going to improve every week, we’ll have to start now."