Junior crew holds its edge through windy scrimmage

By Sarah Low • March 28, 2017 1:30 am
VIRC’s boys’ varsity quad of Beckett Reid/stroke, Seth Rosen, Connor Van Egmund and Rohin Petram rowing through the wind and rough water at a scrimmage with Lakeside School and Burnaby Lake on Saturday. (Jordan Petram Photo)
VIRC’s boys’ varsity quad of Beckett Reid/stroke, Seth Rosen, Connor Van Egmund and Rohin Petram rowing through the wind and rough water at a scrimmage with Lakeside School and Burnaby Lake on Saturday. (Jordan Petram Photo)

What Saturday lacked in rain it made up for in bluster, as March wasn’t quite ready to go the way of the lamb on its first full weekend of spring, leading to some rough water for the Vashon Island Rowing club’s junior crew and its competitors during a scrimmage on Quartermaster Harbor.

Working against a strong headwind — and an outgoing tide for the first half — the VIRC juniors competed in 16 of 18 events, winning eight of them. Guest crews from Lakeside School in Seattle, and Burnaby Lake in British Columbia, Canada, both came away with five victories each.

Vashon coach Richard Parr noted strong performances from ninth-grader Kate Kelly and senior novice Selena Mildon in the girls’ pair, Mabel Moses in the girls’ lightweight single and David Nguyen, who jumped into Burnaby Lake’s boys’ varsity quad (filling in for one of their rowers who couldn’t make the trip), and bowed the boat to victory. Not to be outdone, Parr added, was the novice girls’ quad of Aria Mildon/stroke, Gabbie Graves, Jamie Glatzmayer and Rachel Kirk, with its decisive, open-water victory over Lakeside.

The Canadian crew is not a team that Vashon typically faces, but Parr felt the scrimmage was a good challenge .

“It was great to have Burnaby make the trip down,” he said. “They only scull, and are very good. I was really proud of our crew for showing so well against a team that specializes like that.”

While Lakeside, who Parr said was “really improving” and has a “very strong lightweight girls’ double,” went back to Seattle after the scrimmage, Burnaby stayed with Vashon crew families through the weekend and participated in a dual-club row with VIRC on Sunday morning.

Overall, with the season fast approaching mid-way, Parr said that the club is making progress toward its goals, and that decisions will need to be made soon about priority events for regionals and nationals.

Next up: The Husky Open at the University of Washington on Saturday. Vashon is set to send its varsity boys’ lightweight four, varsity boys’ quad, varsity girls’ quad, varsity girls’ four and masters women’s eight to the annual event.