Bromfield Acton-Boxborough’s varsity girls crews road-tripped to Philadelphia for two national regattas held simultaneously Sunday, June 10. It was worth the trip; the five boats they fielded all won gold by significant margins.
Anna Shlimak (left) and Anya Buchovecky. (Courtesy photo)
The team’s regular season wrapped up at the end of May, but the girls had yet to reach their potential, program director and head girls varsity Coach Holly Hatton wrote in an email. “All spring, they had had the ability to be pretty fast, but due to various illnesses and injuries, we had a late start and basically struggled throughout,” Hatton wrote. “We all knew—coaches and athletes alike—that they could go faster.” At USRowing’s regional championship event May 20, Hatton said, the girls were picking up speed. By the time of the May 27 Massachusetts Public Schools Rowing Association’s state championship they were still building momentum. “I encouraged the girls to continue training and race at the two postseason regattas in Philly,” Hatton wrote. “I’m so glad they did. In the last few practices we started to see the splits I knew they were capable of.” (A split is how long it takes to row 500 meters; the lower the split, the faster the crew.)
In the National Scholastic Rowing Association’s National Schools Championship Regatta in Philadelphia, all crew members must attend the same school. Bromfield’s Anna Shlimak and Anya Buchovecky raced in a pair, winning by 18 seconds. That event was held in conjunction with the inaugural USRowing Junior B/C Challenge for young rowers. In the B/C Challenge, Shlimak and Buchovecky joined three Acton-Boxborough teammates to win gold by 20 seconds in a coxed four. All in all, Hatton said, “It was a real morale booster and should be a great springboard for this fall.”
Some of the same girls will be back on the Schuylkill River racing for Bare Hill Rowing at the Philadelphia Youth Regatta this summer, on the Charles River at the Cromwell Cup in Cambridge, and at Martindale Pond at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Race Results
National Schools Championship Regatta
Womens varsity 2: Anna Shlimak, Anya Buchovecky; 1st (5:59)
Womens varsity 2x: Katherine Fay, Grace White; 1st (5:48)
USRowing Junior B/C Challenge Regatta
Girls Jr U17 1x: Katherine Fay; 1st (6:27)
Girls Jr U17 2x: Summer Maxwell, Kaylee Liu; 1st (6:05)
Girls Jr U17 4+: Anna Shlimak, Summer Maxwell, Anya Buchovecky, Kaylee Liu, and coxswain Sila Inanoglu; 1st (5:30)
