By PAT CALL
For The Beachcomber
It has been a year since Vashon’s rowers journeyed to Dexter Lake in the Cascade foothills southeast of Eugene, Oregon. In that time the regatta has expanded to become one of the premier rowing events on the West Coast spring schedule, and a couple of changes were apparent. The college portion of the event was moved to the previous weekend, leaving this past weekend to juniors and masters rowers. And the surrounding hills had the look of newly shorn French poodles with little tufts of trees adorning the ridges as though that could disguise the newly clear-cut slopes below. Nonetheless, the weekend was blessed by fabulous weather, and nearly every Vashon rower returned home with a medal and a sunburn.
This year the Covered Bridge Regatta fell at the end of the spring break rowing camp for the juniors, so they were feeling the effects of a week of heavy workouts and were not peaking for these races. In addition, this regatta now attracts the strongest programs from California, Oregon and Washington, so the competition was of national quality. Nonetheless the juniors medaled in 22 of the 28 races they entered with three first-place, 13 second-place and six third-place results. In particular, the junior women had a strong weekend, medaling in 15 of the 16 races they entered.
The junior women’s double of Kalie Heffernan and Kirsten Girard overtook powerful local rival Seattle Rowing Center to win by a little more than a second. In this regatta, there are no events for lightweight rowers, so Vashon enters its lightweights in the JV category. Shannon Lipe and KaiLi Scheer won their JV double race on Saturday, and then on Sunday, Lipe joined teammates Emily Milbrath, Maddie McEachern, Virginia Miller and coxswain Callie Andrews to take their JV four race. Other junior women’s boats that medaled were the novice 4, two varsity pairs, JV double, varsity eight, JV eight and varsity four (second places) and novice coxed quad, JV four, two varsity quads and a varsity four (third places).
The junior men’s team had six second-place and one third-place finish. The varsity quad lost its first race since last summer, being beaten by nemesis Seattle Rowing Center. Other second place men’s boats were the novice four, two coxed quads, novice eight and varsity double. The varsity four took a third-place medal.
The masters also had a strong showing with three first-place, seven second-place and four third-place finishes out of 18 races entered. In fact, the 2015 regatta performance more than doubled the total medal count in either of the last two years while bringing home gold medals for the first time in three years. First-place finishers were the mixed quad (Carrie Singer, Chad Magnuson, Jeff Hoyt and Jan Peterson), the women’s four (Mary Rothermel, Holly Zapel, Marilyn Kleyn and Kim Goforth with coxswain Lisa Huggenvik) and women’s double, where Rothermel joined Mary Shemeta for another solid victory. The masters also brought in seven silver medals (women’s single and eight, mixed quad and double, and men’s double, four and quad) and four bronze medals (women’s double and quad and mixed double and eight).
Coach Richard Parr congratulated both masters and juniors on a fine weekend of racing.
“The Covered Bridge Regatta was an important building block in our spring program and we, performed very well,” Parr said.
The team has a quick turnaround for the juniors this week, as it heads to the Brentwood Regatta in Canada on Thursday.
— Pat Call is the father of a junior rower.
