GW Invite Recap

First, we must give a huge thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Prominski, P '13, for hosting both the team and the alumni during the weekend of the GW Invite. They were kind enough to have entire team over for dinner on Friday night, and then hosted a reception for alumni in the area (including some that had traveled from as far as Syracuse, NY and Boston, MA). Not only did they host all these people, but they were also at the race course both days, manning the table with food for the team. We are incredibly fortunate to have them as part of the HC Men's Rowing family.




The team raced against Navy, George Washington, Georgetown, Gonzaga, and in the Men's 1V race, Oxford. Race results can be found HERE.

The entire team put on an impressive performance, with the 2V winning a great race against Georgetown and Gonzaga, and the 1F had very close racing with GW, Georgetown, and Gonzaga. The highlight, of the weekend, however, was the exciting news that the Sullivan Cup would go home to Worcester for the first time in the cup history.

The 1V with the Sullivan Cup after defeating George Washington University. Picture courtesy of Patrick Kennedy.

We were fortunate enough to have a race recap provided to us by the coxswain of the 1V, Mary Carol "Mad Dog" Madigan. Her words are below:

The Sullivan Cup was donated by the Class of 2008 and I coxed the first boat that ever contested it in 2009. We had lost by 8.1 seconds in a particularly painful blow. Though I was studying abroad last year, I distinctly remember clicking refresh on the results page repeatedly the day of the race and the sinking feeling that followed when I saw that GW would be keeping the cup for another year. Since returning back this fall, I set my eyes on the winning GW cup as one of the ultimate goals of my senior season. I know stroke Grant O’Connell ‘11 felt the same way as he too had lost the cup in ’09 and wanted nothing more than to bring it back to Quinsig for his senior year. As the only two seniors in the boat, we tried to highlight the importance of this victory to our teammates in the days and weeks leading up to the race.

After a solid fall season, two training trips, and the longest erg season in anyone’s memory, we were finally setting up for the race everyone had been thinking about and planning for since September. A pre-race calm overcame those at the Holy Cross trailer as we got our motivational speech from Todd and suited up in our new unis and Matt Burke ’95 Memorial Shirts. The well-practiced race plan was discussed and we were reassured that we had what it took to win against GW.

We got hands on, walked it down to the dock, and put the boat in the water. As we put the oars in, Todd made his way down the boat giving each of us last minute words of encouragement and technical advice for the race. “Steer straight, win the cup,” he told me. As we pushed off, Sull joined Todd on the dock. Seeing the Cup’s namesake was the last reassurance I needed, we were going to win it.

Cycling through our pre-race routine on the way up to the start, we watched as the Freshman 8+ and Second Varsity 8+ made their way down the course. Though it was hard to tell how they faired, we tried to keep focus in our own boat and on the task at hand. Practice starts went well as did our race pace tens. Before we knew it we were being called to the line. With GW in lane one and our boat in lane two we both locked onto the starting docks with ease. However the boat in lane three, Oxford University was nowhere to be seen.

We had heard a few months back that Oxford University was sending a boat across the pond to participate in the regatta. We had no idea the calibre of rowers that they would send but based on race day gossip at least half of the rowers were in fact from the famed Blue boat that had won The Boat Race only a few weeks earlier.

The officials considered starting the race ahead of ours just as Oxford approached the starting area. They were issued a warning and before we knew it, the official was saying the starting sequence.

We were off! Through the first four and high twenty that followed we were two to three seats up on both Oxford and GW. We had managed to get it up to about a 47 for the start and made a nice shift to a 36-37 once our starting sequence was over. We held a few seats lead on both boats as we raced through the 500m mark where we took a ten for execution. We knew if we were to maintain our lead we would have to make each catch sharp and perfectly in time.

Somewhere between the 500 and 1000 meter marks, Oxford started to gain on us. Though as a boat we would have all liked to beat the Brits, we had all agreed that GW was the focus of the race and that we wouldn’t be bothered trying to one up Oxford at the risk of losing sight of our Cup Race with GW. As Oxford began to slip by, it became clear that GW too was finding their rhythm and taking back the seats we had previously won. Whereas just after the 500 mark I was even with their 5-man, I was now making calls that I was on GW’s stroke seat and that there was no way in hell we’d let them get back even- cox to cox.

The wind and chop began to pick up as we approached the 1000. Fatigue began to hit, as did the reality of our situation. As we took our planned twenty, GW was slipping away. The guy’s wheels were spinning a bit more with a bit less drive and the set that tended to be down on starboard started to get that all too familiar lean. I decided to scrap the planed calls for this twenty and refocus on execution, reminding the boys that this is where execution mattered the most and that we needed to get the set and the drive back.

As we sputtered past the thousand, under the Key Bridge and towards the 500 to go mark, admittedly my memory gets a bit fuzzy. If you look at photos from row2k it looks like we are a full boat down on GW and even further from Oxford. I, on the other hand, never remember being more than 4 seats off the GW cox. I guess either way it doesn’t really matter because, SPOILER ALERT we won.

We managed to kick it back into gear through the third 500, something we had never really been able to do before. Fatigue changed to excitement, as the gap between GW and us grew smaller. Just before the final 500 meter mark I reassessed where we were, “Only a seat or two down. Ok, we can do this. Lets do this. 4:45 into the race gonna take a ten through the 500 in two lets get it back, haul ass aaaaand MOVE.” Coming out of our ten we were dead even.

It’s the best feeling in the world looking across at the boat next to you, seeing the other coxswain who you know is calling tens just like you are and urging her rowers on much in the same way you are. But now this would be different, she wasn’t going to slip back ahead. “Sprint time boys, time to go up two over two, it’s now or never.” This time my rowers were going to pull me ahead of her.

Yes, it was a bit earlier than initially planned but we were barely holding on to even, we hadn’t even been racing for a full five minutes yet, the finish line was coming fast and we had to get there ahead. After we got it up to at least a 38 I called for more press, more drive and more send. I’ll have censor myself a bit here to keep it PG but, as I was told by my six seat after the race- I made it very clear to everyone in the boat that we would not be crossing the line without the cup.

As the finish times indicate, we did just that. Over the last 300 we went from dead even to a few seats up on GW. Oxford came in first at 5:58.5, we were in close second at 5:59.6 and GW had to settle for last with a 6:01.5.

Cooling down and coming back to the dock flew by and before we knew it we were being handed the Sullivan Cup, getting GW betting shirts and having our photos taken. With the Sullivan Cup in our hands it was time to get ready for our next race that afternoon.