SARATOGA DRAWS BEST OF THE BEST
Fish Creek the site for prestigious crew competition
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » ‘To be the best, you have to beat the best’ is a mantra used by teams across all seasons, sports and surfaces. For this weekend at the Saratoga Invitational on Fish Creek, more than 1,300 boats from across the nation will race side-by-side, 10 lanes across, to see who can get their bow ball across the finish line first.
For the Saratoga Rowing Association boys varsity quads, senior, junior and lightweight categories the known big fish on the water includes New Canaan, the double-medal winners at the 2016 US Rowing Youth National Invitational.
“We’re really, really lucky to be able to stay at home and have the best crews in the country come to us,” SRA boys varsity coach Brad Maxwell said. “It’s a way that we find our speed is through having a really competitive environment in practice. I’m telling these guys in practice all day long to beat the other crews that are sitting next to them.
“There is a famous quote that says ‘The best coach is the bow ball next to you,’ and that’s really true in practice and then when we get to face-off against these guys.”
There are two categories of high school-age racing. In the scholastic category, all rowers and any coxswain in the shell attend the same school. The other category is called “club” available to teams that are comprised of rowers from various high schools in a region.
This weekend’s top guns in the club category include Cincinnati Juniors, Community Rowing Inc. (CRI) from Boston, GMS, New Canaan, PNRA/Mercer and the Saugatuck Rowing Club.
“Being a scholastic club it’s great to see some of these big clubs like GMS, New Canaan, huge traditions of excellence in the quads,” Maxwell said. “To get to face-off against New Canaan, GMS and teams that where I can say ‘Stay with these kids as long as possible, use them as your measuring stick,’ it’s a great tool to use to make these tools faster.”
The SRA boys quads have already traveled out of state to the Manny Flicks in Philadelphia for race experience, finishing fourth overall in the senior category and the SRA lightweights finishing first.
Last weekend, New Canaan was second at the Mercer Lake/ISA sculling championships in the lightweight squad, GMS third and Rye High School third. It was a near duplicate in the varsity quad, New Canaan, GMS and Row America — Rye with the New Canaan second varsity (junior) quad taking first in the final category.
“New Canaan is really fast, they pulled a really good time last weekend at Mercer,” Saratoga Springs High School senior Liam Millens said. “It’s our last season so I just want it to be the best one and the best competition is what I want because it’s the most challenging.”
Saratoga Springs senior Danny Dalton doesn’t dwell on race times or results, he likes to see how things turn out on the water, even in practice.
“You always need that edge and racing boats like the lightweight quad and the junior quad does gives us that edge, but it doesn’t have the butterflies in the stomach, balls to the wall mentality that you get in a race, even in the sprint, you give it all you got,” Danny Dalton said. “You need that edge, that motivation because you can’t get that from just rowing at practice. You need racing experience to win at nationals.”
Maxwell expects the butterflies, the stress and pressure to mount this weekend for his four-man entries.
“Learning to row from behind is an important lesson to learn as well, being able to keep it together and not let it go ... when you start losing to a fast crew. There is some value in there as well,” Maxwell said.
He’s full aware that his squad may not be looking at gold medals this weekend with the level of talent piling into Lee’s Park for the two-day speed showdown.
“It’s dangerous when you win by a lot and can get over confident, so being able to check these guys and show them what speed is and talk about it afterwards,” Maxwell said. “That’s where most of my coaching on race day comes after the race as opposed to beforehand.
“We come out here and it’s not like we’re calling a trick play or anything, we’re coming out and doing what we do every day. Sometimes it hits home a little more when you’re facing a really fast crew. Getting your (butt) kicked once in a while can be an important lesson.”
The SRA entries hope their vantage point will be seeing the top teams behind them, their only view of the race course during the race.
“If we’re together at the sprint than that means we’re pretty even and we’ve pushed just as hard as them and they’re definitely in striking distance that we’re able to beat them,” Millens said.
A loss to any of the top quads is not the end of the line for any of the boats competing this weekend.
“The payoff is at nationals,” Millens said. “This is just our starting point where we know where we are and then that’s where we want to be in four weeks and that’s going to be where we’re going to really show and try to be our best.”