On the weekend of October 5-6, the Jesuit Crew team opened its season and dominated at the Head of the Oklahoma Regatta held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in the Boathouse District. The Head of the Oklahoma is not only a regatta, but also a festival which is widely recognized, and the participating teams race both at the national level, collegiate level, and the junior level, which is the level that Jesuit competed in. Racing two and a half miles against the clock on the Oklahoma River, the team looked determined to take home some victories. “You’re racing for time, not [necessarily] against each other” declared Head Coach John Fife, who wanted these words to be the mindset of each Jesuit rower participating in the regatta.
Saturday, October 5th:
On the morning of the first day of the regatta, the novices took to the Men’s Youth Novice 4 race and the Men’s Youth Novice 8 race. Novice teams finished 11th, 12th, and 13th in the Novice 4 and finished 8th and 9th in the Novice 8. Fife stated, “Our novices rode in even boats, which means we didn’t stack up one boat to make it go really fast. We just stayed even.”
In the afternoon during the Men’s Youth 8, the Varsity 8, and the Junior Varsity 8 participated. The Varsity 8, composed of Christian Taylor ’15, Conar Ehring ’15, Joey Merkel ’16, Jordi Perez ’14, Jay Hofmeister ’16, Adam Hyman ’16, Jake Gossett ’15, Mitchell Opatowsky ’15, and coxswain Elliot Stone ’15, won by a whopping 8 seconds  over Atlanta Rowing Club, and the Junior Varsity 8 finished 6th and beat all the other JV’s that participated in the race. “If Varsity had raced in the Collegiate 8, we would have been second behind Harvard,” continued Fife. “We were pretty happy with that.”
In the evening, races called “night sprints” took place which were 500 meter races across the river. Jesuit came in third, only a couple of hundreths of a second behind 2nd. This race concluded Day 1 of the Head of the Oklahoma for Jesuit.
Sunday, October 6th:
On the morning of the second day of the regatta, the Varsity teams participated in the Men’s Heavyweight 4 and the Men’s Lightweight 4. The top Heavyweight Varsity 4 team finished 2nd in the three mile race, only half of a second behind Atlanta Rowing Club. The top Lightweight Varsity 4 finished 1st by over 30 seconds over Oklahoma City. “Our lightweight 4 was a huge result,” exclaimed Fife. “Those guys did a really nice job.”
With this astounding season opener in the bag, the Jesuit Crew team looks forward to continue blazing their trail of victory throughout the rest of their season. As for now, the team is preparing for their next race, The Head of The Charles, the largest regatta in the world, which is held in Boston on October 20. Be sure to catch up with the team and cheer them on to victory when they will be racing down the majestic Charles River.
