Although the month of March may seem like just an ordinary month- 31 days with a couple holidays sprinkled in- to the crew team, it was the busiest month of their lives. With three regattas and a week-long session of intense training in the middle behind them, the team’s uphill battle seems close to completion.
To start the month out, Crew went to Austin on March 2nd for a competition that should have been a “gimme” win for the program, but due to some unforeseen ineligibility problems, it did not turn out quite as the team had anticipated. With a couple of key contributors battling grades, some of the program’s younger rowers had to move up and carry the enormous load of a varsity light-weight rower. Although expectations exceeded results, the team still came in second place out of the 18 lightweight 8 (8 rowers per boat).
To most teams this second place would be a god-send; however, since Jesuit naturally sets standards above and beyond, this was not satisfying for the rowers. Team captain, Jesus Mathus ’13 expressed his frustration, “We definitely would’ve won it, had we had some of our key rowers back, but there’s more time in the season to prove ourselves.”
On this note of not being satisfied, the team set out to right the “wrongs” of their race in Austin by putting in intense work during spring break. With two-a-days every day over spring break, the team showed its dedication to success by putting everything they had into the week when most people were relaxing. “It was one of the hardest weeks of my life, but I’m glad we did it because we definitely got better and became closer as a group,” reminisced Jorge Perez ’14.
During the following week, the team took to the road again for a race in Oklahoma City on the Head of the Oklahoma River. This time, varsity crew faced far more daunting opponents, but finished a respectable 3rd place out of 6 powerful teams, while the freshman 8 came out extremely victorious, taking first in their division. “I was impressed with how [the freshman] did” remarked Perez, and hopefully this strong, younger group will be able to eventually carry the mantel of expectations which has become the standard for Jesuit Crew.
Finally, the crew team caught some semblance of a break over Easter, when they did not have to travel several hundred miles to compete in a regatta, however they did keep up their regular practice schedule, which makes other sports look like a walk in the park. Not letting this break last too long, they traveled to San Diego the following weekend, where they faced the toughest opponents yet.
On Mission Bay, Jesuit was unfortunate and ended up in the outside lane, which was noticeably narrower and had a longer path than the others, but rolling with adversity Jesuit still came out nicely. The wind also became a factor during the race, which threw off the Rangers, who do not traditionally race in the wind, and caused them to place in the middle of their heat and not qualify for the finals. “We raced well in rough conditions” explained head coach John Fife, who was clearly not too concerned by Jesuit’s sub-par finish given the odd circumstances.
So now that the treacherous month of March has passed, the Rangers are left with a few more important races before the season ends, most notably regionals on May 1st, which the Rangers won last year. Expectations are high again this year, and Jesuit rowers are intent on winning back-to-back regionals and once again going on to nationals later in May.
