Township Has A Fine Sunday By The River

On a beautiful sunny day in Philadelphia, the Haddon Township Crew Club quietly came to Manny Flick #2 and placed top 2 in 5 of the 7 events it entered.

Haddon Township's Emily Donovan, Cassidy Leyendecker, Sara Rosenberg, and Salena Silvaria began the day with the Girls Freshman Quad Event. A race that was hottly contested in the first 500-m however the HT girls proved to be the fittest crew in the race, rowing to a nearly 9 second victory over Philadelphia rival, Conestoga High School. Their hard work this winter and last fall was certainly evident as they opened their lead through the half way point of the race to win by a sizable margin.

In this, her 5th time in the 1x, one of the most sensitive and difficult boats to race, Haddon Township's own, Caley O'Brien took the lead at the 300-m mark after a modest start and never looked back. When she finally crossed the finish line her margin of victory over her Delaware Valley Rival was over 21 seconds. She rowed a smart and clean race to take home her first single scull victory in a boat appropriately named the "Independence".

The Boys Varsity 2x of Quinn Fitzpatrick and Gregory Cuneo fought hard through the middle thousand battling Philadelphia rival, Conestoga High School all the way down the course to take a well earned second place finish. They topped their friends from Berwyn by just over 1 tenth of a second to earn a top 2 place in the Varsity 2x event.

The women's Varsity Quad of Julie Cippon, Emily Gartland, Emily Davis, and Tori King forged their way through a 7 mph head wind to find their way to a top two finish, besting Philadephia's Springside High School by just 2 hundreths of a second. Though they dropped an early boat length's lead over the stellar crew from Episcopal (last year's Stotesbury Champions), they steadily climbed back into the race with a solid middle and last 500-m. They finished a respectable 7 seconds behind last year's Stotesbury Champions and have been an incredible example of what hard work and determination can help you achieve in a year's time.

Though HT Crew has a long racing season yet to come, this was a great first start. I have been continually impressed with the improved maturity and racing accumen the team has shown this spring and i'm looking forward to continued energy at practice as we move towards Manny Flick #3 next weekend.

The women's group will practice at 3:15 this week and the men will practice at 5:15. We will try to keep this schedule, rotating every two weeks, for the remainder of the season.

On a final, but unfortunate note, I was disappointed with the attendance at the re-rigging session at 4:30 this afternoon at the boathouse. It is THE TEAM'S responsibility to make sure all of the boats make it back to the boathouse and are rigged following a regatta. In the future, it will be a requirement that all athletes return to the boathouse following racing. If some individuals decide it is not necessary to help their teammates unpack and re-rig after a trip, they will find themselves rigging boats by themselves on Monday afternoon while everyone else has off. Parents, I ask for your help in enforcing this rule. We have assigned boats/oars/equipment to individuals for a reason and you must return to the boathouse to make sure that all of our very valuable equipment has returned to the boathouse and is ready for Tuesday's practice. In the past we have misplaced equipment or left it behind and it has cost the club a lot of money and today we nearly made another very costly mistake.

Manny Flick #1

The following boats have been entered to compete at Manny Flick #1 this weekend in Philadelphia, please come prepared for wet/cooler weather. We will return to the boathouse following our last event: the Girls Varsity 4x. All crews participating in this event should return to the boathouse following the regatta to unload and rig boats.

Men's Varsity 4x:Matt/Ryan/Erik/Bill
Men's Varsity 2x: Greg/Quinn
Women's JV 4x: Catie/Jill/Kelsey/Mandy
Women's Varsity 4x: Julie/Emily G./Emily D./Tori

All athletes (competing this week or not) need to go to regattacentral and follow the instructions below to fill out an online waiver. No athlete will be permitted to participate in this event without a waiver so please get this done today:

Annual Waiver Submittal Instructions
Instructions
Share your Roster Code UT-362319 with all active athletes in your RegattaCentral roster.
Instruct the athletes to go to https://www.regattacentral.com/athletes/ where they can enter your Roster Code and submit their waiver.IMPORTANT: Waivers must be submitted by the athlete or their legal guardian. (Coaches are not permitted to submit a waiver on a rower's behalf)
How does this process work?
When an athlete enters your Roster Code and their last name the system will attempt to locate their record in your roster. If it is located they'll be prompted to submit their waiver and receive their free, non-privileged USRowing Membership ID (Required beginning in 2008 for all USRowing-registered regattas)
If the athlete has not yet been added to your roster the system will automatically add them. This is an especially helpful and time-saving feature at the beginning of rowing seasons where you may have many new athletes.
Support
USRowing: Support is available by both email and telephone (800) 314-4769, weekdays 9am to 4:30pm EST
RegattaCentral: Support is available by both email and telephone (614) 360-2922, weekdays 9am to 5pm EST

HT Practice from 1-3 tomorrow

Practice tomorrow will be from 1-3 for all athletes. If you have forgotten the schedule, please refer to this blog post, it has been up for months: http://haddontownshipcrewclub.blogspot.com/2010/01/spring-2010.html.

Monday/Tuesday Lineups

Novice

Sykes
Sam

Alec

Evan

Nick

Pocock

Emily Donovan

Kate

Sara

Cassidy

Determination

Alex

Jim

Julliette

Salena

PM

Sykes

Julie

Emily G.

Emily D.

Tori

Determination

Catie

Jill

Mandy

Caley

Greg

Matt

Ryan

Quinn

Pocock

Erik

Kelsey