WINNING STREAKS
Medals, nationals and history on the line for Saratoga Rowing
As the host team of the New York State Rowing Association, the Saratoga Rowing Association has a lot of pressure placed on it throughout the weekend.
Providing a safe and fun atmosphere on and around Fish Creek, insuring there are enough safety boats and referees on the water, organizing shifts of volunteers throughout Lee’s Park to handle parking, clean up, hold racing shells in place at the start, time the event accurately and then the hardest part, defending your home water.
Last year Saratoga Rowing captured more than 18 medals at the state regatta and within those categories includes some legendary winning streaks.
“I think when you get a tradition on the varsity level of hard-working, athletic people, it attracts those new people,” SRA executive director and girls varsity coach Eric Catalano said. “People go into a group they see themselves a part of, so if you have a strong, hardworking, and athletic group, people who identify with that group will go and join it.
The group leading the pack is the Saratoga Rowing girls varsity eight, state champions 13 of the past 15 regattas based on available data. Their last non-first across the finish line entry was in 2015 to Albany Rowing Center. SRA was still a state champion, rowing as a scholastic boat where all rowers and its coxswain attend the same high school. ARC is a ‘club’ with rowers from throughout the Capital District competing. Medals are awarded in both categories each year based on the single final result.
“Not every year are you going to have the exact same athletes, but it just makes it a little more possible, a little more prevalent,” Catalano said. “That’s one of our goals is to continue to have a big team that attracts the right athletes because they see themselves as ‘That’s who I want to be or that’s who I identify with myself.’”
That tradition of winning carries down to the Saratoga Rowing freshman girls program, a 15-time winner over the past 16 available years available, their last non-first-place finish, in 2012 to Shaker High School.
“There comes a moment for every squad, every gender, a realization that the kids that went before you are still in the boathouse, there are three years of them in the boat house,” SRA regatta director and boys freshman coach Chris Chase said. “There is a point where you realize that you are a part of that of that, which is different than just knowing it. There is a point where the next group realizes that there is an added bit of pressure whether it is fair or not.”
A first-place finish on Saturday afternoon and allday Sunday can also propel an entry into one or two national championship regattas, the Scholastic Rowing Association of America regatta May 25 and 26 in New Jersey and the USRowing Youth Invitational June 8 to 10 in California.
With just one regatta under their belt, the Saratoga varsity girls entry finished fourth two weeks ago at Fish Creek, racing sideby-side, 1,500-meters on the buoyed course, bested by Greenwich, Saugatuck, PNRA/Mercer, all club teams. Row America Rye was two seconds behind SRA in fifth.
“Saugatuck has won a national championship for three years and Mercer, Greenwich and Rye have all come on pretty strong the last couple of years,” Catalano said. “There are some good things going on down in Southern Connecticut and Southern New York.
“Rye as a New York team is always exciting to see a New York team getting super-fast,” Catalano said.
Beginning Saturday afternoon and all day on Sunday, all the SRA entries will be looking to row hard, row fast, and defend their various titles on their home course.