Around 248 years after the Continental Army’s successful campaign in the Battle of Saratoga, the turning point of the American Revolution, the Bromfield Acton-Boxborough rowing team engaged in its own battle on April 26 and 27—the annual Saratoga Invitational, the largest American sprint regatta.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: It rained. This is practically a given at the upstate New York venue. There were some bright spots: Bromfield’s Ellie Daly and A-B’s Emily Yang earned silver medals in a double, and the girls varsity 8 and the boys novice 4 nabbed bronzes, in Saturday’s flights.
Temperature swings, thunderstorm warnings, and wild wind made for unpredictable racing conditions. “Gotta love ‘Toga!” said girls varsity coach Holly Hatton. More than 1,200 crews raced for 1,500 meters in 10 lanes across Fish Creek, including high schools and private clubs from A (Albany Rowing Center, Albany, New York) to, if not Z, then Y (YMCA Quad Cities, Moline, Illinois).
Bromfield junior Sofi Marder, a coxswain on the varsity girls team, steered the course five times over the two-day event. She noted both the dramatic weather and the challenge of racing private clubs. “We are up against a lot of teams that have a lot more resources than we do; it’s not a level playing field,” she said. “We were pretty competitive, especially with other teams at our level—and we were still pretty competitive with the teams with more resources.”
From front: Reval Argow-Sniderman, Margaux Lehouck, Abby Depew, Gabby Shee, and coxswain Sofi Marder in the girls third varsity 4 as seen from a bridge in Saratoga Springs, NY. (Courtesy photo)
She described a chaotic start to one of the races. The wind was blowing a crew from friendly rival Wayland Weston off the start. Multiple race marshalls shouted commands, and in the confusion, a man holding a start flag scolded one of the rowers, “What is wrong with you?” Marder said her hackles went up. “They are kind of like our sister team almost,” she said. “And their coxswain was a total icon, and she said to the man, ‘You do not talk to my ladies like that!’ So that was fun. We really value being a good team to other teams, and a nice and respectful guest.”
Marder said she subbed in for one of the boys races, and, at the urging of her crew, called for them to “Release the Kraken,” which caused them to increase their stroke rate. In yet another race, her cox box battery failed, and her rowers had to call out to each other throughout the race. Although they sometimes felt like “sad wet rats,” she said, “Overall, we all got lots of opportunities to row, and we had a lot of fun.”
The BA-B program’s location creates unique circumstances for the team. Unlike in places such as Los Angeles, rowers in Massachusetts can’t get out there year-round. Sometimes the water is frozen solid. All winter the BA-B athletes train in a former retail clothing store, Gould’s, in Acton. They bring weights and ergometers (rowing machines) and hang motivational posters and American and Olympic flags. Over February break, coaches arranged for the team to use the tanks at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, in which they row oars with huge holes in the blades on a kind of lazy river.
This year the indoor season lasted even longer than usual; the Massachusetts drought status for the state’s northeast region is still listed as “significant.” The pond seemed to take forever to fill up after the usual fall drawdown for the weeds. The coaches contacted the Middlesex School and arranged for BA-B to row out of its Concord River facility a few days a week. Meanwhile, the coaches spent three days puttering around Bare Hill Pond, marking rocks just below the surface with buoys.
Finally, BA-B boats were able to practice, but just for a week before Saratoga, running their only home race, the Harvard Henley, on a modified course on April 19. “I can place guys in a boat of similar size and fitness,” said boys varsity coach Gary Piantedosi, “but they really need miles and miles of continuous rowing to get used to each other, and we just have not had those miles available to us.” He added, “Our guys did race hard in Saratoga, and they came off the water more determined than disappointed. They know they can go faster—and they will.”
The team’s next outing is the Amber Zapatka Memorial Regatta on the Merrimack River in Lowell on May 10 and 11.
Jill Maxwell is a B-AB parent and longtime sports contributor to the Harvard Press.
Varsity boys
Saturday, April 26
- 1x: Henry Belanger, eighth place, 7 minutes, 19.354 seconds
- 2x: Will O’Donnell and Reid Nelson, eighth, 7:50.227
- 2-: Oscar Maxwell and Patrick Tucker, fifth, 6:32.206
- 1V4+: Shankara Rao, Parker Cole, Atticus Keep, Patrick Tucker, and coxswain Noah Kim, fourth, 6:07.276
- 2V4+: Oscar Maxwell, Reid Nelson, Will O’Donnell, Julian Fariello, and coxswain Austin Lai, fourth, 6:16.262; Alex Horton, Gavin Datta, Thomas Knight, Henry Belanger, and coxswain Sofi Marder, fourth, 7:32.256
- 1V8+: Shankara Rao, Parker, Atticus Keep, Reid Nelson, Patrick Tucker, Henry Belanger, Alex Horton, Ulad Danilovich, and coxswain Noah Kim, sixth, 5:32.157
- 2V8+: Oscar Maxwell, Julian Fariello, Thomas, Will O’Donnell, Teddy Stoddard, Eric, Mihir, Ben, and coxswain Austin Lai, sixth, 5:54.982
Sunday, April 27
- 2x: Noah Kim and Gavin Datta, seventh, 6:57.058
- 1V4+: Patrick Tucker, Shankara Rao, Ulad Danilovich, Atticus Keep, and coxswain Noah Kim, fourth, 5:35.433
- 2V4+: Thomas Knight, Mihir Vidhate, Will O’Donnell, Reid Nelson, and coxswain Sofi Marder, eighth, 6:03.979; Julian Fariello, Henry Belanger, Gavin Datta, Alex Horton, and coxswain Austin Lai, 10th, 7:01.639
- 1V8+: Shankara Rao, Parker, Atticus Keep, Reid Nelson, Oscar Maxwell, Henry Belanger, Patrick Tucker, Ulad Danilovich, and coxswain Noah Kim, seventh, 5:05.240
Varsity girls
Saturday, April 26
- 2x: Ellie Daly and Emily Yang, second, 7:05.864; Ellie Pulido and Caroline Yang, seventh, 8:30.014
- 1V4+: Emily Yang, Emma Lawson, Beatrice Maxwell, Braeden Hartley, and coxswain Hanna Lem Moustakas, fourth, 6:23.370
- 2V4+: Abby Hirschberg, Izzi Walker, Alicia, Ava Dawn, and coxswain Adhiti Venkatesh, fourth, 6:48.663; Autumn, Sravya, Nix Klein, Alexis Nichols, and coxswain Gwynnie Poutasse, seventh, 7:14.752
- 3V4+: Gabby Shee, Abby Depew, Margaux Lehouck, Reval Argow-Sniderman, and coxswain Sofi Marder, sixth, 7:27.749
- 4x: Will Stoddard, Emma Gregg, Ellie Pulido, and Johnny Greenberg, fifth, 7:08.967
- 1V8+: Ellie Daly, Will Stoddard, Emma Gregg, Emma Lawson, Beatrice Maxwell, Johnny Greenberg, Emily Yang, Braeden Hartley, and coxswain Hanna Lem Moustakas, third, 5:46.499
- 2V8+: Izzi Walker, Autumn Desclos, Abby Depew, Caroline Yang, Annabelle Purcell, Alexis Nichols, Alicia Tang, Ava Dawn, and coxswain Adhiti Venkatesh, fifth, 6:18.994
- 3V8+: Gabby Shee, Sravya Hamsala, Simone Taylor, Beth Belanger, Nix Klein, Ellie Pulido, Margaux Lehouck, Reval Argow-Sniderman, and coxswain Gwynnie Poutasse, fourth, 6:37.051
Sunday, April 27
- 2x: Ellie Daly and Emily Yang, sixth, 6:58.871
- 1V4+: Emily Yang, Johnny Greenberg, Beatrice Maxwell, Braeden Hartley, and coxswain Hanna Lem Moustakas, sixth, 6:08.444
- 2V4+: Will Stoddard, Emma Gregg, Emma Lawson, Beatrice Maxwell, and coxswain Gwynnie Poutasse, first, 6:23.630; Abby Hirschberg, Izzi Walker, Alicia Tang, Ava Dawn, and coxswain Adhiti Venkatesh, third, 6:52.170
- 3V4+: Gabby Shee, Caroline Yang, Autumn Desclos, Reval Argow-Sniderman, and coxswain Sofi Marder, third, 6:31.769; Nix Klein, Sravya Hamsala, Margaux Lehouck, Grace Connor, and coxswain Abby Depew, sixth, 7:10.91
- 1V8+: Ellie Daly, Will Stoddard, Emma Gregg, Emma Lawson, Beatrice Maxwell, Johnny Greenberg, Emily Yang, Braeden Hartley, and coxswain Hanna Lem Moustakas, sixth, 5:30.053
- 2V8+: Gabby Shee, Autumn Desclos, Izzi Walker, Caroline Yang, Annabelle Purcell, Alexis Nichols, Alicia Tang, Ava Dawn, and coxswain Adhiti Venkatesh, sixth, 5:58.033
- 3V8+: Gwynnie Poutasse, Sravya Hamsala, Margaux Lehouck, Ellie Pulido, Nix Klein, Reval Argow-Sniderman, Abby Depew, Grace Connor, and coxswain Sofi Marder, 10th, 6:37.152
