The crowd cheered as local crew teams’ Men’s Varsity Eight-man boats crossed the finish line in the 1500m sprint at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens last Sunday.

The school’s Crew team ‘Eight’ placed 2nd, qualifying them for the state competition to be held in Occoquan, Virginia later this month. In addition, senior Walter Nicolas also qualified in a ‘Single Scull’, the one man boat.

After three seasons of year-round effort, the school’s Crew team competitions have come to an end.

Concluding the competitive season, the Men’s Varsity ‘Eight’ and the Men’s ‘Single Scull’ both placed second in the Eastern Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association Regionals at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, qualifying them for the state competition in Occoquan, Virginia.  However, the team opted out of attending the state championship.

Sophomore Varsity Eight Stroke Brock Clifford was responsible for setting the pace or ‘stroke rate’ for the boat.

“We are all disappointed about not being able to attend the state competition. However, this is a good learning experience for us all. We all now understand the requirements which we are to meet if we are to go to compete at the state competition in the future,” Clifford said.

Instead, the team attended Mathews Regatta at Williams Warf in Mathews, Virginia. Mathews is the annual “fun” regatta, serving as a wrap-up to the season.

“The Cox Crew team entered in as many events as possible for the Big Mathews Regatta to make a great end to another exciting season,” sophomore rower Megan Combs said.

And, after a long day of racing, team members kept to the tradition of throwing their boat’s Coxswain in the water, immediately followed by everyone else, Coxswains and Rowers alike.

Men’s Varsity Eight freshman Liam Devlin was one of the Coxswains thrown into the water.

“This was a great year, topped off with a very fun Regatta at Mathews. Everyone rowed well and had an awesome time,” Devlin said.