Best Ever Results in Nationals

On May 27th Bishop Ireton Rowing traveled to the Scholastic Nationals in Saratoga, New York. As the team pulled into the camp ground to go out for a swing row of the course, you could see that this year the men and women were focused on making a statement. 

The first day of racing was an early one for the Lady Cardinals. The junior woman’s eight comprised of (Cox-Julie Roth, Stroke- Lilly Ramey, Sarah Morgan, Olivia Babiec, Carmen Fox, Meredith Ramey, Sarah Young, Katherine Aust, & Bow- Jasmine Conkright) were first to race. They had a tough heat with only three boats advancing to the semi-finals of four heats. The lady Cardinals took third posting a time of (5:26:59) This marked the first time that Bishop Ireton had advanced to the next day of racing at nationals, making it one step closer to the grand final. The junior eight knew they would need to have the race of their lives to make it out of the semi-final with only three boats advancing to the grand final.

The Lady Cardinals had the toughest semi-final draw, while coming in sixth place, the top three crews from their semi-final would go one, two, three in the grand final. The girls came off the water with their heads held high knowing they gave it their all, little did they know that they finished the regatta ranked 10th in nation!

The men’s team decided to break away from the eight they had raced all season to stack a varsity four comprised of (Cox-Amanda Krauss, Stroke-Patrick Walsh, Garrett Hulfish, Thaddeus Babiec & Bow-Joseph Morgan.) The varsity four is hands down the hardest race at the national level and has the most entries, but the boys rowed hard in their heat posting a time of (5:18.928) which got them into the reps later that day.

The men would have liked to finish in the top two of the rep to make it to the semi-finals the next day. The men’s second race was a little out of reach as they finished in 6th place. The men showed great grace knowing that they had only practice that boat a couple of times before heading to Saratoga. The men also made Bishop Ireton history by becoming the first men’s crew to make it out of the heat on the national level.