Albany Rowing takes on nation’s best
ALBANY, N.Y. » The Albany Rowing Center and the NCAA College Football Playoff National Championship teams have something in common, they all have to wait almost a month to face the best in the nation.
The ARC girls varsity eight and boys four earned entry to this weekend’s US Rowing Youth National Championship almost a month ago at the New York State Scholastic Rowing Association championships on Fish Creek in Saratoga Springs. This weekend, they will row against teams from Oakland, California, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Jersey and Boston to determine the fastest high school aged crews at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, Florida.
“I like it, but I almost wish that we took that time to train, but we qualified on May 14 or 15 but then raced the next weekend and the weekend after that, Northeast Regionals to feel out the 2k distance and then at the Pittsford Regatta, just 1,200-meter sprints, which is nice top end speed prep and then last weekend off,” Albany Rowing Center girls head coach Mike McMinn said. “I almost wish we had one of those two weekends off to just train, but its fun for the kids, so it’s good to keep them racing a little bit, they enjoy it.”
This weekend’s competition is considered ‘club’ entries with boats made up of rowers from an area, not limited to one individual high school as required by the Scholastic Rowing Association of America championships two weeks ago.
With the opportunity to row club or ‘all-star’ boats, the Youth National Championship is considered the best of the best.
“The standard now is you have to be fast enough to win scholastic nationals to get top two at states and if you’re not at that level, than your season is probably going to end before youth nationals,” McMinn said. “Even at youth nationals, we were the NY State champs by open water in 2015, the scholastic national runner-up was 13th, ‘C’ final, NYS Bronze medalist didn’t even make the ‘C’ final.
“It’s a tough benchmark and
we just don’t see other than Saratoga Invite and Northeast Regionals we don’t see that ridiculous standard of girls eights speed that really is present at the top.”
The girls eight of coxswain Ana Lewandusky (Columbia), Meghan Smith (Bethlehem), Grace Smith (Niskayuna), Emily Ashton (Albany Academy for Girls), Margaret Pfeiffer (Niskayuna), Mikayla Lahr (Holy Names), Maggie Preller (Bethlehem), Josie Catalano (Doane Stuart) and Shannon Delaney (Bethlehem) have experience at Youth Nationals.
The ARC girls eight finished 11th last year (fifth in the ‘B’ final), with a top 10 in 2010, ninth overall. Grace Smith and Shannon Delaney are making their first appearance in the Youth Nationals boat this season.
Catalano along with seniors Lewandusky, Ashton and Pfeiffer are making their last trip to the top event of the year and now their prep careers.
“I think everyone is happy to be there and everyone understands that you have to qualify to get there,” Josie Catalano said. “I think the environment is a lot more competitive.
“I get a lot more nervous for nationals, knowing that you are racing against the top crews in the country is very exciting and very intimidating at the same time.”
After nationals she turns her sights on Wesleyan University where she will continue to row this fall.
“As a senior it’s ending, but at the same time it hasn’t even begun yet. This is the end of one chapter and then on to the next after this.”
Making history for ARC is the boys four, the first sweep boat (single oars and a coxswain) of coxswain James Cashen, Evan Kimble (LaSalle), Timothy Smith (Niskayuna), Christian Sauer (Bethlehem) and Connor Toomey (Christian Brothers Academy).
“They’re tall and they’re skinny, well, most of them are tall, Evan is small,” ARC boys varsity coach Andy Sayles said. “Evan is more of your typical build as far as guys around this area.
“The Saratoga Boathouse is 30 guys Evan’s size, you don’t get 6-foot-4 lean guys in this area, I’m fortunate that we have two in this boat. It’s by design that we’ve had them attracting their friends that are that size.”
Sayles, a former Burnt Hills Rowing product and then at Marist College joined ARC three years ago in the spring.
“I said ‘This is a lot of potential and I need to make sure that it goes right and integrated how I wanted to do things, so I just took them with me,” Sayles said. “I took the varsity and novice eight together.”
Senior coxswain James Cashen has seen the growth within his boat and felt the speed beneath him over the years.
“When I got on here as a novice the boys team was pretty small, we had a lot of big, tall guys, but there wasn’t a whole lot of drive,” James Cashen said. “Everyone went out and did their stuff, then Andy came along, the same year that I did. He was a huge part of getting everyone on the same page and focusing everyone up.
“The team has grown a lot in size, but also the guys have gotten more focused and ever since Andy came he said we can do this, we have the right guys to win states, we have the right guys to row at a national level but it’s going to take everyone’s focus. I think just three years of harping on that it got into everyone’s head and everyone’s adjusted. The workload has gotten bigger, but everyone is really excited to see where we’re at right now.”
Cashen has made the right calls at the right time to feel his boat go faster.
“We always felt good about our technique, our first race, Mercer Lake, no one knew what to expect and I looked over and I saw the guys who won nationals and we were moving on them,” Cashen said. “I called it up and we just went, that was the moment this season when I said ‘This boat can really fly, we really have a lot of speed.’”
Cashen’s calls are directed at his stroke seat, LaSalle junior Evan Kimble you see who sets the pace for the entire boat as they follow his lead.
“When he makes the call, it’s on me,” Evan Kimble said. “If I don’t go they’re not going to go.
“I try to take it on myself to be the crazy one out on the boat, when he makes the call and we’re down a bow ball in the boat and I’m extremely tired and have to go, I always want to go.”
The field will be set after Friday’s time trials for each category, created out of necessity for the nationwide event.
“Because the crews are being drawn from regions all over the country, it’s really hard to seed the heats,” McMinn said. “Some regions are totally stacked and others are a little easier to qualify out of.
“Time trials are used to seed semifinals, less head to head racing at least, and they eliminated the reps, but in theory it should be fairer.”
Friday’s performance sets a team up for a chance to compete for a top spot in the semifinals and from there, a spot in the top six and the ‘A’ championship final.
“The field has gotten faster and faster,” McMinn said. “We could have our fastest varsity eight in team history and it might end up being 14th.
“It’s hard to say. Our priority is making sure that they make the boat go as fast as they have all year and as fast as they are capable of moving it right now. As long as they do that, expectations are met and you really can’t go home upset about that.”
His boys four coxswain also wants to leave it all on the water at Nathan Benderson Park this weekend.
“I’m kind of going into this like I’m the oldest in the boat, they’re going to get another shot at this, my job is to make sure we can do everything we can, have our best piece and see where we stack up,” Cashen said.
“If that’s not as high as we thought we were, if that’s not good enough, so be it. We put down our best piece.
“My goal is to make sure we go out there and have the best race we can. I think we’re going to do that and be up there.”