Girls’ eight finishes second at international regatta
By: Justin Feil
By winning the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic District Championship, the Mercer Junior Rowing Club girls’ varsity eight earned the chance to go to the U.S. Rowing National Youth Championships in Cincinnati.
Instead, they chose an even bigger platform to end their season the Henley Royal Regatta.
First held in 1839, the Henleys attract an international field annually to the race that is hosted on the Thames River in England. The MJRC won their first race and their semifinal before finishing runner-up to the defending champion Oakland (Calif.) Strokes for the Peabody Cup in the juniors division Sunday.
"I think it was a good way to end," said Erin Conlon, a senior at West Windsor-Plainsboro South who sits in the stroke seat. "I’ve been on Mercer since freshman year. It’s a good way for myself and the other seniors to end their careers on Mercer. It was the biggest race anyone had been in, in terms of importance and prestige. It was a culmination of the best season we’ve had."
MJRC, which is the junior program for the Princeton National Rowing Association, is open to all high school students who do not have rowing programs at their schools. It has fielded scholastic boats for five years, but never fared this well in any previous year. The varsity eight consisted of Conlon, Lauren Alba of West Windsor-Plainsboro North, Rachel LaBella of WW-P South, Harriet Kadar of Princeton High School, Kiki Rosa of WW-P North, Katie Suyo of Pennington, Halley McDaniel of PHS, Libby Clark of PHS and coxswain Becca Fein of Princeton Day School. They are the first team from MJRC to go to the Henley Regatta.
"I knew it was something I wanted to do," said MJRC coach Sean McCourt. "I was waiting to see when we had the right boat to do it. This was the year we could guarantee the best results. We won the regional championship pretty handily. Once we did that, we knew it was time to go.
"This is definitely by far the best boat we’ve had. This year, we finally broke through. They were a little more seasoned this year. Most of the seniors had rowed for at least three years."
The five seniors in the boat were Conlon, Alba, Kadar, McDaniel and Fein. All are going on to crew in college after a memorable finish to their scholastic careers.
"I got to go over to England and race with the other girls I’ve been rowing with all season," said Alba, who will row at Boston University. "The level of competition is the peak you can get to in high school."
The Henley Regatta is like no other regatta that the MJRC team has been to. Instead of 2,000-meter races, the races are just 1,500 meters. And instead of having close to five boats in each race, the races consist only of two boats going head to head.
"We’d never done dual races before," Alba said. "We went in not knowing what to expect. We went to the Reading Regatta and found out what it was like. It’s much more intimate racing style."
Two days after arriving in England, the MJRC won the Reading Regatta to earn the Royal Military Academy Challenge Trophy. They won three times in dual races, beating the Kingston Grammar School of London, the Headington School of Oxford and Mount Saint Joseph’s of Philadelphia, the same boat that won the American Scholastic and Stotesbury Cup championships. It was a confidence builder.
"That definitely helped a lot," Conlon said. "We had only practiced one with our new boat. There’s a difference practicing and racing with it. We got a nice boat from the Westminster School in London. It was a really nice boat. It was a good experience to race in the boat before the Henleys. The dual style is different from what we’re used to at home. We were able to do multiple races and get a feel for the boat. And all three teams we beat were in Henleys as well."
The MJRC boat felt good heading into the Henley Regatta, and knew full well that it could come down to them and the Oakland Strokes.
"We knew it was going to be an uphill battle," McCourt said. "We knew it was going to be a challenging obstacle to win."
MJRC opened the Henleys with quite a challenge. They beat the Molesey Boat Club, the boat that had won the England scholastic championship and contained four members of England’s junior national team. In the semifinals on Sunday morning, MJRC defeated the same Kingston team that had beat in the Reading Regatta the week before. In the finals, Oakland won by 1¼ lengths over MJRC in one of the most exciting races of the regatta.
"Over our practices the last couple weeks, we knew they’d be the biggest competition there," Conlon said. "We used them as the team we had to beat. What it comes down to, we fought really hard. We gave the race everything we had. They were just a little faster than us.
"That race was a product of a good season and a good race strategy on our cox’s part. We tried to stay strong. For most races, you try to slow down at some point and pace. We knew there would be no pace in this race. It was just a really hard race the whole time. Just getting to say we were in the final is a pretty big honor."
Added Alba: "We went over expecting a big fight. We knew they were fast. We’re a lot smaller than most other girls. We were hoping to win, but we’re still pleased with how we did because we’re proud of how we raced."
The loss could not but a damper on the brightest season in MJRC girls’ history. The crew leaves with a real sense of satisfaction over its body of work and the statement it made about the MJRC program.
"I don’t think any of us expected to have this good a season," Conlon said. "The boat, we knew we were only graduating two seniors from last year. We were confident we were going to have a good season. I don’t think anyone expected what we got. It was a lot of hard work that came out in the last couple months.
"This is the first season we had the same nine girls in the boat all season. We really worked well together."
Conlon would know best. She has rowed in the MJRC varsity eight since the end of her freshman year, the first year that she like most of the boat was introduced to rowing. Now Conlon is headed to Stanford to be a part of an up and coming lightweight crew. She’s come a long way since her first days of crew, all the way to the peak of rowing with the Henley Regatta.
"Starting off my first year on the team, I didn’t even know it existed," she said. "Then, as I started to learn more about crew, I found out about it. Until early this year, I didn’t even know it was an option (for MJRC to go)."
It was also quite an experience for Alba, who had a more humble beginning to her crew career and didn’t make the varsity boat until this year.
"I used to be very unathletic," Alba said. "My mom made me start rowing to get exercise. Everyone is surprised I stayed with it. I’m very happy I stayed on the team.
"Last year, I was in the varsity open weight four. We got to nationals on a technicality and got last. It was good experience to see other crews are that fast. It made me want to work harder for this year. Last year, I was upset I didn’t make the varsity eight. The open eight is the first priority and I wanted to be in the boat for my senior year."
It’s hard for Alba to imagine life without crew now. She has taken to the sport, and once she got in to BU, she knew she wanted to continue in the sport.
"It’s a very physical sport," she began. "It’s also a sport where the team is so important. You can’t row a boat with seven girls. I like the team aspect a lot. And I enjoy being on the water."
Maybe no water was so good to be on as that of the Thames River. It gave the MJRC girls’ eight the unique chance to test themselves against the best in a hallowed river.
"We could have gone to national championship and done well," Conlon said. "This was like a once in a lifetime opportunity, and it was a perfect culmination for the seniors. It was a lot more expensive and it required more time and planning. But it was worth it."