Eight Exeter crews returned to Lake Quinsigamond today to race Kent School in the annual dual meet. The girls squad made another impressive sweep of the competition–their second in a row. This included a spectacular 18 second win by the girls first boat. Races were tighter for the boys squad: Kent’s junior varsity crews proved too much for Exeter’s fourth and third boats, and Kent’s second eight barely edged out Exeter’s second in the last 250 meters. Despite these earlier losses, the boys first boat overcame a three-seat deficit in the first 500 to beat Kent’s B1 by more than half a length. Full results:

G1		G2		G3/G4
Exeter	05:12.0	Exeter	05:31.0	Exeter (3)	05:32.0
Kent	05:30.0	Kent	05:43.0	Exeter (4)	05:37.8
				Kent (3)	05:38.1
				Kent (4)	05:43.1
B1		B2		B3/B4
Exeter	04:31.0	Kent	04:54.0	Kent (3)	05:07.1
Kent	04:32.7	Exeter	04:55.5	Kent (4)	05:18.9
				Exeter (4)	05:20.6
				Exeter (3)	05:22.7

Weather conditions were excellent: mostly sunny skies, temperatures in the 60s with a slight southeast wind.

Girls co-captain Becca Kisner ’08 said that “It’s really great to sweep again, our confidence from last weekend’s wins definitely carried into today’s racing.” However, the captains and coaches have reminded everyone on the squad that now is not the time to fall into complacency: “Now that all the rowers have seen how much our hard work has paid off, we’ll be raising the bar and pushing people to get faster for upcoming races.” Kisner also remarked she is “very proud of the younger girls for stepping up and racing at a really competitive level.” Video footage of the G1, G2, and G3/G4 races are available on YouTube, courtesy of Chris Hanlon, P ’10.

Boys co-captain Ian Winthrop ’08 said that he’s “happy with all the boys performances, especially the two varsity eights.” Winthrop said “In the first boat race we were a little scrambled and a little inconsistent with our strokes for the first 1000. We didn’t really get a good rhythm until at least 1000 meters in. So this week we’ll be doing a lot of long, steady state pieces to work on our rhythm and improve our bladework.” Winthrop added, “We know we have the power, and Coach [Smith] said that Kent rowed better than us, so once we are able to put all that power in the water we should find even more speed.” Regarding the second boat’s narrow loss, Winthrop said “I’m really proud of them: they rowed with a lot of intensity. I was concerned earlier in the season that they might be too small, but they’ve been barely losing against really fast crews, and I think they can definitely find more speed.”

Next week, crews will head to Hanover, NH to race Hanover High School on Dartmouth’s racecourse. Please e-mail me if you would like to take photos of next week’s races since I won’t be able to attend them.

Update: Streaming video of the G1, G2, and G3/G4 races are available on YouTube, courtesy of Chris Hanlon, P ’10.

Update 2: Full resolution video of all races is now available for direct download here (118MB).

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Race Photos