Oct. 26, 2012

Men’s Crew completes competition at Head of the Charles looks forward to Princeton Chase

WASHINGTON - Georgetown's heavyweight and lightweight Men competed at the prestigious Head of the Charles this past Sunday.

The heavyweight varsity eight finished in 18^th, 6 places higher than last year’s 24^th place. In the race they finished in 15:22.5, just 10 seconds out of the top 10 places for college crews.

Senior rower Mike Hennessy imparts how the team is hungry for more. “We weren’t really that satisfied with our race, we could have done a better job in the headwind. Therefore, we did not row to our full potential. We are going to get some great work in this week so we can execute in hopes of a strong performance at the Princeton Chase this upcoming weekend”.

“Although the result was better relative to last year, we didn’t feel like it was really representative of what the crew is capable of. We are looking to have a better and faster race this weekend”, remarked head coach Tony Johnson.

Heavyweight Varsity line-ups:

Men's Varsity Heavyweight Eight

Cox - Kerri McKie

Stroke - Henry Hoffstot

7 - Matt Stewart

6 - Mike Blommer

5 - Ben Holtzmuller 

4 – Tim Broughton

3 - John Absher

2 - James Nelson

Bow - Mike Hennessy

Men's Second Varsity Heavyweight Eight

Cox – Bethany Biszko

Stroke – John Haviland

6 – Charles De Pentheny O’Kelly

5 – Jack O’Donnell

4 – Kyle Textor

3 – Chris Sparacino

2 – Steven Lim

Bow – Matt Mullman

The lightweight men are coming off their race at the Charles where they finished in 12^th place in a time of 15:29.4 and within the top 10 for colleges in the lightweight eight category.

“Going into the weekend, we knew that most of our competition was returning many of their oarsmen from last year's varsity boats”, noted Lightweight Head Coach Sam Stitt. “We returned three of last year's varsity oarsmen and coxswain for this fall (Jack Devlin '13, Connor Smith '14, Chandler Mahaney '13, and Katie Courtin '13). We looked at the race as both a benchmark for our winter training, and a chance for our sophomores (Mike Davidson '15, Matt Sarge '15) and upperclassmen new to the varsity (Max Mortimer '14), to gain valuable varsity racing experience, to fill the two remaining seats, we welcomed back two oarsmen who were absent from the team last spring (Alex Hagan '13 and Kyle McConnell '13). We hope to improve our result going into the Princeton Chase”.

Senior captain Chan Mahaney had this to offer regarding their race at the Charles and looking forward to their next race, “The Head of the Charles served as an eye opener for the lightweight varsity. Our highlights of the race were a strong second mile, great turn around Weeks Bridge, and aggressive sprint, but we ultimately came up short on our goal of improving upon last year’s results. After graduating four seniors, we are a less experienced crew right now, but we are consistently gaining speed and look forward to going faster this weekend at the Princeton Chase. We will race eights, fours, and pairs this weekend and aim to gain momentum moving into winter training”.

Varsity Lightweight Line-ups:

Men’s Lightweight Varsity Eight

Cox - Cathryn Courtin
Stroke - John Devlin
7 - David Mahaney   
6 - Alexander Hagan   
5 - Connor Smith
4 - Maxwell Mortimer  
3 - Michael Davidson   
2 - Matthew Sarge 
Bow - Kyle McConnell

Lightweight Second Varsity Eight

Cox - Gabriel Sim
Stroke - Thomas Guthrie
7 - William Kwong  
6 - Erik Petersen
5 - Dale Scholler
4 - Joshua Sattel
3 - Riley Mellen
2 - Philip Wong
Bow - Stephen Raiola

The Lightweight and Heavyweight Freshman crews will also compete for the first time this Sunday.

Freshman line-ups:

Heavyweight Freshman Eight

Cox – James Nealon
Stroke – Derek Boyse
7 – Westford Lang
6 – Ray Dunn
5 – Graham Miller 
4 – Michael Lewers 
3 – Brian Hecht 
2 – James McDermott 
Bow – Corso Rosati  

Lightweight Freshman Eight

Cox – Alessandra Fodera
Stroke – Lucas Prioleau
7 – Thomas Brzozowski
6 – Peter Mangan
5 – Charles Scott 
4 – Whalen Machale 
3 – Paul Wrenn 
2 – William Fitzgerald 
Bow – Gerard Thiers  

The Georgetown University heavyweight and lightweight varsity crews, will get their opportunity to race against Eastern Sprints competition this weekend at the Princeton Chase on Sunday, October 28th on Lake Carnegie.

Race schedule for the men:

10:00 AM Men’s Varsity Heavyweight Eight               

10:30 AM Men’s Varsity Lightweight Eight                 

12:00 PM Men’s Varsity Heavyweight Four 

1:00 PM Men’s Heavyweight/Lightweight                                                                       

1:30 PM Men’s Varsity Lightweight Four

2:30 PM Small Boats 2-

The final race of the fall will be a freshman only event, The Rutgers Fall Classic in New Brunswick, NJ at The Rutgers boathouse on the Raritan River. The race will be held on Nov. 3^rd with the first race starting at 11:00AM.