Ithaca College Crew Competes at the Head of the Fish!

Regatta: Head of the Fish
Location: Saratoga Springs, New York
Participating Schools: Many
Conditions: Little to no wind in the morning shifting to heavy head wind towards the afternoon, then shifting back down to a light wind towards the end of racing.

On Saturday, October 24th, Ithaca College Crew travelled to Saratoga Springs, New York in order to compete in the Head of the Fish Regatta! The Varsity Women travelled with the sculling team the night before and stayed overnight due to their early race times. The Varsity Men and Novice Women however got on the bus at the A&E Center at 7:00am on Saturday and travelled to the race course. With heavy fog in the morning, there was a threat of races being postponed throughout the day. However, as the fog dissipated, the racing conditions got much better and racing remained on schedule!

The Varsity Women’s team entered two eights in the Collegiate 8 and Collegiate JV 8 events, as well as three fours in the Collegiate 4 event! The Women’s First Varsity 8 raced in the Collegiate 8 event, racing against rivals such as William Smith, RIT, University of Rochester, Williams, WPI, Marist and more! The First Varsity entry completed the 3,500 meter course in a time of 12:57.65, finishing 10th out of 16 entries! They were only 1 second behind Marist and 2 seconds behind St. Lawrence, who are both crews that the Women race in the Spring. Being so close to them in the Fall shows that improvements over winter training and throughout the spring can surely result in victories over these crews in spring racing! The Women’s Second Varsity 8 raced in the Women’s Collegiate JV8 event against many of the same rivals as the Varsity entry. The Second Varsity entry completed the course in a time of 13:50.77, finishing 12th out of 15 entries.

In the Women’s Collegiate 4+ event, Ithaca entered three fours! The “A” entry completed the course in a time of 14:35.52, finishing 11th out of 28! The “B” entry completed the course in a time of 14:37.09, finishing 13th out of 28! And last but certainly not least, the “C” entry completed the course in a time of 15:43.12, finishing 26th out of 28. The “A” and “B” entries beat crews from Williams, Marist, Clarkson and University of Rochester! With two top half finishes out of 28 entries, they should be very pleased with this result!

The Women’s Novice Team entered two eights in the Women’s Collegiate 8 event! The “A” entry completed the course in a time of 14:19.65, finishing 6th out of 28 and the “B” entry completed the course in a time of 14:27.91, finishing 9th out of 28! The “A” entry was only .1 seconds off of WPI and 1 second off of William Smith and the “B” entry was only .7 seconds off of Williams! Both entries beat crews from Wesleyan, Marist, St. Lawrence and the University of Rochester! With both crews finishing in the top 10 out of 28 entries and only falling short of some very competitive crews by fractions of seconds, the novice women’s team should be very excited for the spring season!

The Men’s Varsity Team competed later in the afternoon, and had a very strong showing! The Men’s First varsity 8 raced in the Men’s Collegiate 8 Event and raced against crews from Boston College, Wesleyan, Marist, University of Rochester, RIT and more! It was a very competitive field, and the racing was going to be quite fast. The First Varsity 8 completed the course in a time of 11:10.68, finishing 5th out of 21 entries! They were only bested by Boston College, Wesleyan, Marist and RIT. Shortly after, the Men’s Second Varsity 8 entry raced in the Men’s Collegiate 8 event against many of the same schools! The Second Varsity 8 entry completed the course in a time of 11:43.52, finishing 3rd out of 22 boats! They beat the Marist entry by less than a second and the entry from RIT by 7 seconds, which was a great improvement, considering they had lost to that entry by 8 seconds at the Head of the Genesee! The conditions for the Men’s Collegiate 8 and Men’s Collegiate JV8 races differed from the earlier races due to the fact that the wind seemed to pick up a considerable amount during the middle of the day. However, both crews handled the conditions well and rowed a very strong race! The wind died down a considerable amount and the water became a little more calm for the Men’s Open 8 and Men’s Collegiate Lightweight races! The Men’s Open 8 entry completed the course in a time of 11:15.35, finishing 1st out of 6 entries! They beat the 2nd place entry from St. Catherines by 36 seconds! It was a dominating performance and they were able to walk away with a first place Fish Head! The Lightweight 8 saw the same success, completing the course in a time of 11:26.46, finishing 1st out of 3 boats! They beat Rhode Island by 27 seconds and New York Maritime by 29 seconds! Overall the Men medaled in 3 out of the 4 races they were entered in with 2 golds and a bronze!

Overall, it was a great day for Ithaca Crew, with some promising results from all crews. Ithaca showed that they can compete strongly at all levels and that they will be a force to be reckoned with come Spring! Next weekend, both the Men’s and Women’s teams are racing against Cornell and other crews on our own inlet! If you happen to be in the area, please come down to the boathouse and watch Ithaca Crew compete against some of the top crews in the North East!