Sports > April 24, 2008

By Connor Swarbrick | Asst. sports editor

After months of hard work, the Wake Forest crew team returned to the water and competed in the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships (SIRA) at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, Tenn., April 19-20.

Wake crew entered four boats: a women’s varsity four, men’s varsity four, women’s novice four and men’s varsity lightweight four.

“By racing against numerous other top boats, we realized what it takes to become a great crew team,” freshman coxswain Dan Kiley said.

Each boat participates in a preliminary race and how well they do in the preliminaries determines what semi-final and what lane they receive. They arrange the semi-finals so everyone has a fair chance and all the winners from the preliminary heat are spread out. Then the top finishers in the semi-final go to A finals, then the B finals are filled, followed by the C finals

The women’s varsity four, consisting of seniors Lindsay Williamson and Mariko Stronach and juniors Maggie Baldwin, Susie Manship and Kevin Duck placed fourth in the preliminary race with a time of 8:29.72. They finished first in the C semi-final and then first again in the C final with a time of 8:26:70.

The women’s novice four finished third in the C final with a time of 8:50.45 after finishing fourth in the preliminary and second in the C semi-final.

In the men’s varsity four, Wake tired to overcome a late lineup change but were unable to make the final, finishing fifth in the C semi-final with a time of 7:14.40

The men’s varsity lightweight four, consisting of sophomore Carl Jablonski, juniors Bert Watson, Steve Tomick and Adam Fernbach and Kiley reached the A final, but came up just short of a medal, finishing fourth with a time of 7:22.30. Central Florida finished third with a time of 7:21.70.

“The team showed a lot of resiliency and strength at SIRA, with numerous boats overcoming obstacles ranging from equipment to personnel issues,” Jablonski said.

“Although the team did not have as strong a showing as we would have liked, SIRA showed that we have a strong base of rowers and will be in a position to build the team even stronger in the upcoming seasons.”

The next race will be the Oak Ridge Dogwood Regatta April 26 at Melton Hill Lake followed by the Dad Vail Regatta April 9-10 in Philadelphia, Penn.

“I think we saw some of our training paying off over the weekend, and we got a few glimpses of the kind of speed that some of these crews have the potential to discover,” Jablonski said. “In the men’s lightweight 4+, the next few weeks are going to be all about finding a few more seconds worth of speed to challenge some of the top.”