Crossley sets gold standard in Canadian secondary schools rowing
Officially, E.L. Crossley’s boat in the second-last final at the Canadian Secondary Schools Rowing Association Championships Sunday in St. Catharines was a senior men’s eight.
In reality, and for those keeping score in the grandstand and on Henley Island, it was more like a pirate ship weighted down with gold — and with expectations.
Everyone in the eight-member crew, including coxswain Kennedy Keith, had already one a gold medal by the time organizers were ready to reward the Calder Cleland Memorial Trophy, the most-prestigious honour in high school rowing in Canada.
Keith, who along with Meaghan Camplin, Peyton Learn and Lauren Nuccitelli finished first in a senior women’s 59-kilogram quad six races earlier, said the racing mindset is sitting in the coxie’s seat as it is from the two seat in the quad.
“The mindset has to be the same,” she said. “When you’re coxieing, you want to push the rowers to go faster, and when you’re rowing, you want to push yourself to go faster.
A coxie by trade, the Welland native doesn’t expect to have oars in her hands when in the fall when she begins majoring in biomedical sciences at University of Central Florida on a rowing scholarship.
“I think rowing has helped with my coxieing,” she said. “I have a better idea of how rowers are feeling during the race. “I can make better calls.” Keith didn’t enter the senior men’s eight feeling any added pressure to call a good race.
“Our overall goal for the team was to get the efficiency and I think everyone wanted to push hard so they can win for the whole team.”
Crossley and Branksome Hall finished the first in the men’s and women’s efficiency standings, respectively, after gold,
silver and bronze medals were awarded in the 37 finals.
In the 13th race of the day, Alex Jastremski led six boats across the finish line in the senior men’s single in a time of 7:28.56.
“It feels fantastic, especially since our team always prioritizes the efficiency trophy,” the Boston University-bound scholarship student from Beamsville said.
Crossley crews rowed to a regatta-high 11 gold medals, including a junior men’s coxed four that set the pace despite starting in Lane 7. In rowing, lanes 4 and 5 are equivalent to pole positions in auto racing.
“We were going hard all the way through, and we just pulled through at the end,” Owen Darling said on behalf of coxie Mayah Speck and crew members Braiden Jaques, Zachary Kuhn and Andrew Learn. “We’ve exceeded all of our expectations for this race.”
Grimsby’s Hailey Mercuri won gold in the senior women’s 63 kg for lane five. However, the Grade 11 student doesn’t have a favourite starting position on the rowing course.
“Sometimes, five is a terrible lane, but it’s also good to be in the middle of everyone. You can see everyone around you if get ahead at the beginning.”
Ridley College’s senior women’s quad of Erin Broski, Alexandra Cook, Gabrielle Cook and Eva Sabine took gold in the senior women’s quad despite being at the trail end of the pack 750 metres into the 2,000-metre final.
“It was a fifth, but we’ve been training all year for this race, and we ended up with what we wanted to get,” Gabri- elle Cook of St. Catharines said.
“We keep pushing it a little before each marker and we gained ahead of them.”
Fraser Darling and Neil Kennedy led the senior men’s pair from start to finish for Crossley.