Crew rows through the spring season

The men’s crew team won three gold medals, while the women’s team won two.

With only a few meets left, the men’s and women’s crew teams will look to cap their spring season on a high note. For the men’s team, it was a season with a few medal-winning performances, and for the women, it was a season that included some Top 5 finishes and a seventh-place finish at the Atlantic Ten Conference Championship on April 16.

Men’s Crew

Between the Keuper Cup in Felsmere, Fla., on March 12 and the April 17 Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta on the Schuylkill River, the team has amassed three gold medals, five silver medals and two bronze medals. The Owls favored spot seems to be the tri-state area as all three of their gold medals have come in either Pennsylvania

or New Jersey.

On March 26, the team secured its first gold medal of the season in the Murphy Cup in Collingswood, N.J., when the lightweight-4 squad of junior Stephen Brady, sophomore Chris Roberts, sophomore Richard Ehmer, senior Nick Contino and junior Samuel Scimeca defeated Carnegie Mellon by 4.72 seconds to win the gold.

Both of the team’s varsity-8 squads would earn the team’s second and third gold medals in the April 10 Knecht Cup on the Schuylkill River.

The first varsity-8 squad, which defeated Delaware by 1.45 seconds, was comprised of junior James Barr, junior Nenad Ninkovic, junior Jason Cartwright, junior Brian Reehill, sophomore Mike Mirabella, senior John Masterson, freshman Fergal Barry, senior Scott Waters and junior Donald Norris.

The second varsity-8, comprised of sophomore Kevin Nally, junior Joe Bellesheim, senior Jeff Wunderlich, junior Aaron Heyde, sophomore Maciej Grudzian, junior Mike VanAssche, junior Djordje Vilimanovic, junior Petar Ivacic and sophomore Matthew Sbei, won the team’s third gold medal of the season thus far.

Women’s Crew

The team opened its spring season at the Keuper Cup with both of its varsity-8 squads capturing gold medal finishes on March 12. Notable performances for the team included a fifth-place finish at the Occoquan Sprints in Fairfax, Va., and a second-place overall finish in the Knecht Cup. On April 16, the team competed in the Atlantic Ten Conference Championship, where the team finished in seventh place and graduate Brynn Moore was named to the first team, All-A-10 team.

Both teams will wrap up their seasons with the Bergen Cup on April 30 and the Dad Vail Regatta starting on May 13.

Brian Dzenis can be reached at brian.dzenis@temple.edu.