RowAmericaRye team had an impressive fall season.
By Melanie Cane
RowAmericaRye team had an impressive fall season. The Junior team, which is comprised of 38 rowers from several schools, including Rye High School, Rye Country Day, and Holy Child, showed steady improvement and brought home medals from almost all of their regattas. The season culminated in the Head of the Charles and Head of the Schuylkill, the two largest regattas in the country.
At the Head of the Charles, Rye Country Day senior Will Turner, Rye High senior Leon Chambers, and coxswain Kate O’Byrne, a junior at Ursuline, helped the Men’s Youth 8+ move from 78th to 8th out of 85 entries. Men’s head coach Aleksandar Radovic was pleased with the rowers’ performance, especially because they did not have much time to practice together. “The senior class stepped up, took on leadership roles, and helped the underclassmen develop in the best possible way,” said the coach. “Also, the coxswain did a phenomenal job steering one of the toughest courses in the country.”
Both the Men’s Youth 8+ and the Women’s Youth 4+, which finished 21st out of 85, secured entries for 2016.
In their last regatta of the season, the Head of the Schuylkill, the Youth Racing Team excelled. Chambers and his partner Sean Hayes won gold in the Men’s Double Scull. Chambers also won a silver medal in the Men’s Single Scull, as did RHS sophomore Hannah Weingartner in the Women’s Novice Single. The rest of the boats finished in the top 10. Coaches Radovic and Marko Serafimovski were “thrilled with the teams’ performance at this fiercely contested small boat competition.”
Now that the fall season is over, the coaches are looking forward to the winter season when the athletes develop individually on indoor rowing machines. They have seen outstanding improvement in all of the rowers’ abilities, especially the novices, and are confident that the team will continue to train hard and thrive.
