The 2011 Head of the Ohio has come and gone, and despite the weather being less than accommodating for spectators, the race went off very nicely, and North Catholic Crew was well represented!

As the first racing of the fall, it’s always a little exciting to see what happens with a new team. While the boys didn’t earn any medals on their home course, they had respectable showings in both the Lightweight HS Boys 4+ (6th place – Gordon Bolar, Justin Braun, Nick Pietrone, Brian Miller, Sam Klimko) and the Open Mens 2- against college competition (6th place – Brian Miller, Nick Pietrone – and 8th place – Sam Klimko, Justin Braun).

The girls squad came away with 2 medals, one in each event entered. The first medal was in the Open Women’s 2- (against college competition, also), where Natalie Nyman and Emily Opperman placed third. Those two followed that up by rowing in the stern pair of the Lightweight HS Girls 4+, where along with Liz Leonard, Katie Guarnaccia and Danny White, they won the event for the first time since 2006!

Congrats to all the athletes, and big thanks to all the parents and alumni who came out to support the team!

We will also have practices for new members October 8 and October 24, also at 10 AM.

Anyone who would like to try rowing, but can’t make any of those days, get in touch with us! Email Coach Sands or Coach Jenn. You’re always welcome to come to any practice, just check with them for our schedule.

Click here for directions.

• Women’s Varsity 4+ – 2nd place, Grand Final
• Men’s JV 4 – 4th place, Grand Final
• Men’s Lightweight 4+ – 2nd place, Grand Final
• Women’s Lightweight 4+ – 1st place, Grand Final
• Men’s Novice 4+ – 3rd place, Grand Final
• Women’s Novice 4+ – 4th place, 3rd Final

The team won 4 medals out of 6 boats on the day, not a bad haul, all things considered, and a great day of preparation for the Midwest Scholastic Championships in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, this coming weekend, May 21-22. See ya there!

Here’s our rundown:

HEATS (1st place to Grand Final, 2nd to Petite Final, rest to 3rd):

• 8:00 AM – Girls Novice 4+ (lane 2)
• 8:30 AM – Boys Novice 4+ (lane 2)

FINALS:

• 10:10-10:30 AM – Girls Novice 4+ finals (based on heats)
• 10:40-11:00 AM – Boys Novice 4+ finals (based on heats)
• 11:10 AM – Girls Ltwt 4+ (lane 2)
• 11:30 AM – Boys Ltwt 4+ (lane 4)
• 12:00 PM – Boys JV 4+ (lane 4)
• 12:10 PM – Girls Varsity 4+ (lane 2)

The team has returned from a wonderful week of training and bonding in Augusta, Georgia. We had more splendid weather, and the athletes all worked their tails off. A great time was had by all.

Unfortunately, we returned to find the Allegheny River flowing like crazy, and we won’t see the water for a few days. To tide us over, here are a couple clips from our week:

We’d be remiss if we didn’t also give a HUGE thanks to all the parents who came along – Alex Leonard, Carol Nyman, Dan & Denise Sterzinger, and Gary and Patty Miller, and, of course, our stalwarts over the last 6 years of spring training making (maybe?) their last Georgia trip with us, Russ Kuntz and Kathy Hanna!

And an extra special thanks to Coach RJ Pisani from Upper St. Clair Crew, as he was along with us. He was an enormous help, and we hope to see him and his crews at Nationals again this year!

The event was a nice competitive change of pace for the rowers, in addition to being part of their regular winter testing.

On March 5th, the team completed the annual Erg-a-Thon fundraiser at the boathouse, which even saw coaches Jenn, JP, and Nate take part in the fun. While the money is still rolling in for that, it appears to have raised enough to reach the goal of subsidizing the spring training trip to Georgia. Hopefully there might even be enough left over to buy Coach Jenn a new StrokeWatch! (See what else we need.)

Now the team leaves on Saturday (6 AM at the boathouse!) for a week in sunny Augusta, Georgia! North Catholic Crew will be rowing out of the Augusta Rowing Club (a former USRowing national training center) and enjoying the culinary creations of Fatmans. The forecast calls for highs between 64 and 81 next week. See ya!

Not only was the event very well run by Three Rivers, North Catholic Crew was able to raise a nice bit of money along with put in a good day’s performance.

The large majority of the team recorded personal bests, with the novices dropping the biggest chunks of time. Emily Opperman also won the only medal of the day, placing 2nd in the Lightweight JV Girls event with a time of 8:09.2. Our other top-10′s were from Katie Guarnaccia (Lightweight Novice Girls – 10th), Tina Sahr (Lightweight JV Girls – 7th), Julie Miller (Varsity Girls – 5th), Mason Guckert (Youth Coxswain Boys – 10th), John Hanna (Lightweight Varsity Boys – 5th), Ryan Kuntz (Lightweight Varsity Boys – 7th), and Derick Woodard (Lightweight Varsity Boys – 8th).

Our relay team also finished a very close 4th place, while ALL SIX relay members were lightweights. Imagine what they can do against those big lugs on the water, when moving boats matters!

The team next heads to John Carroll University on February 13th for the Hammer Ergatta in Cleveland. Following that, training will continue until our Erg-A-Thon on March 5th, and March 12th when we leave for Augusta, Georgia on our weeklong spring training camp.

The final schedule has been posted here. A preliminary schedule has been posted on RegattaCentral (PDF here). For full race details, go to the main RegattaCentral site. There will probably be a “final” schedule posted on Friday at some point. We will try to post it here, also, but please check their site for the official word.

North Catholic parents: Please note, those are RACE TIMES, and our student-athletes have been told their official time to be there (novice girls at 9:45 am, rest of team 10:30 am), and when they can expect to go home. They will be there for much more of the day than just their race – for both supporting their teammates, along with our duties as event host.

Briefly, our preliminary schedule of events are as follows:

• 11:15 am Youth Novice Girls
• 11:45 am Youth Novice Lightweight Girls
• 12:15 pm Lightweight JV Girls
• 12:30 pm Lightweight JV Girls/JV Girls
• 12:56 pm Lightweight Varsity Girls
• 1:22 pm Coxswain Girls
• 1:35 pm Coxswain Boys
• 2:01 pm Youth Novice Lightweight Boys
• 3:03 pm Lightweight JV Boys (flight #1)
• 3:16 pm Lightweight JV Boys(flight #2)
• 3:42 pm Lightweight Varsity Boys
• 4:15 pm High School Mixed Relay

We are excited to be hosting, excited to race, and excited to see everyone there!

Please attend, as many important fundraising and scheduling details will be discussed, and your input and participation are important to making everything successful this spring.