Golden Gaels rowing lived up to high expectations this past weekend, bringing home several medals and finishing second in both the men’s and women’s overall standings at the OUA Championships hosted by Trent.
“It’s been another good year for Queen’s rowing,” said head coach John Armitage. “I’m really proud of the performance of our rowers.”
The women’s team finished second to Western in the overall standings with 81 points, behind Western’s 105 points and ahead of third-place Brock, who amassed 77 points. Armitage was quick to say that finishing second to Western is no small accomplishment.
“One of the things that tilts the playing field in rowing is that Western is the national team training centre, so they had a lot of people relocate to Western and take one year of school,” he said. “So we came up against a stacked team of Canadian rowers.
“[Mustangs rowing head coach] Al Morrow is our Olympic rowing coach, and he’s the winningest coach in Canadian rowing history in terms of medals, so we’ve got a lot of women who relocate there,” he said. “For our women to come up against that, it’s pretty formidable odds.”
Armitage also said he thinks the high standard Western is able to set is good for the Queen’s team and good for the sport.
“The positive aspect is, it really does force us to raise the bar, to compete at a high level,” he said.
The women’s lightweight boats had an excellent weekend, going toe to toe with the Western squad. The Queen’s lightweight eight of Jenny Hogsden, Vanessa Kenalty, Rebecca McWatters, Kate McRae, Kristine Matusiak, Katya Herman, Connie Dayboll, Jenn Tranmer and cox Jill Quirt powered their way to gold in a time of 7:06.5. The lightweight four team of McWatters, Tranmer, Dayboll and Herman with Lindsay Grand in the cox seat also won their race, clocking in at 7:39.2.
The women’s lightweights also won two silver medals, in the light single of Hogsden and the light double of McRae and Kenalty. The lone heavyweight medal was a silver in the heavy double, won by Sara Richardson and Kristen Balcom.
“On the lightweight side, we continue to be the top women’s rowing program in Canada,” Armitage said. “[We] placed second overall to Western, and to be second to Western is something to be proud of. We’ve won the women’s team title the last two years, and the two years before lost by one point to Western, so this is our fifth year in a row in the top two.”
Armitage said a great deal of credit is due to the women’s coach, Scott Feddery, who was named the OUA Women’s Coach of the Year as voted by the coaches.
In addition to the team’s success this year, the future looks bright, Armitage said.
“I see the lightweight women continuing as one of the dominant forces in lightweight women’s rowing in Canada, and in the heavyweight women we’ve got very few graduations,” he said. “We’ve got some outstanding talent coming out of first year—people that rowed junior varsity and novice—and we’ve got a core group of women that are committed to training really hard, so we’ve got a lot to build on.”
The men’s team, who were also defending OUA champions, also finished second overall to Western. The Mustangs finished 18 points ahead of Queen’s with 122 to the Gaels’ 104. As on the women’s side, Brock rounded out the podium with 47 points.
The men captured three gold medals on their way to their impressive point total, in the lightweight eight, double and single races. Morgan Jarvis was dominant in the lightweight single, posting a time of 7:47.1 over the 2,000-metre course, while Alistair Carter and Colin Sutherland won the double in a time of 7:01.9. The lightweight eight was manned by Dave Carnegie, Simon Gowdy, Nick Pratt, Josh Metcalfe, Kevin Caners, Bill York, Stu Robinson and Ryan Gallagher with cox Ashley Sutherland, and came from behind to win in a time of 6:12.0, just three seconds ahead of Western.
The men’s team also brought home two silvers—in the heavyweight double and the heavyweight four—and three bronze medals, going to the light four, heavy eight and light eight.
Armitage said the heavy eight might have been the race of the day, despite a third place Queen’s finish. The team, who were doubling in lightweight and heavyweight races in the hopes of winning the overall title and had raced just two hours earlier, battled a rested McGill boat and the Western powerhouse stroke for stroke, finishing less than four seconds behind McGill and only 0.7 seconds behind Western.
“That was McGill’s only race of the day, so they had rested, while our guys had had a barn-burner two hours earlier in the lightweight eights,” he said. “With 250 metres to go, any one of those three crews could have won.”
Armitage said he is extremely happy with his team’s performance, and especially with their consistency, and that they partially achieved the goal they set for themselves after last season. They were awarded the OUA Championship because Brock declared they had used an ineligible rower and forfeited the crown.
“Nobody felt good about that—it felt awkward receiving the banner,” he said. “This year, we set a team goal to win the men’s title outright, and we achieved part of our goal because we out-pointed Brock, but Western came on really strong.
“The men’s team performed at the highest level of any men’s team we’ve had in years,” he said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of when you perform at your highest level and you get beat. What was outstanding about the men’s team was that every one of our teams performed at their peak level—there was no underperformance on the men’s team. We have to be very pleased with that.”
Armitage said he gives a lot of credit to two of the men’s coaches—Rob Watering and Ed Ough—who helped the boats to their impressive results.
He added that he also sees a promising future for the men’s team.
“I see them only getting faster—we’ve got some graduations, but we had our junior varsity men finish first and second at the development race, and our novice men were second in their race,” he said. “That bodes well for next year, and also
we have no heavyweight men graduating.”
The team will compete in the Canadian University Rowing Championships, an invitational regatta, in Victoria, B.C.
this weekend.
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