One Hornet Team Captures a Medal as Crew Season Starts

WESTERVILLE, OHIO — Saline Crew kicked off its spring season on Saturday, competing in the 11^th annual Hoover Invitational on Hoover Reservoir in Westerville, Ohio, just north of Columbus. The spring season features fast head-to-head sprint races of 2,000 kilometers and Hoover Reservoir set up perfectly with seven fully buoyed lanes for exciting racing.

Nineteen high school clubs from Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Canada competed Saturday in the regatta hosted by the Westerville Crew Rowing Club. While the weather did not cooperate with rain and temperatures in the 40’s, Saline rowers competed in 7 of 16 events with some of the most competitive teams in the Midwest, including Cincinnati Junior Rowing Club, Westerville Rowing Club, Notre Dame Academy Crew, Dublin Crew, Indianapolis Rowing Center, Central Catholic Rowing Club and Cleveland Scholastic Rowing Association, as well as Upper Canada College from Toronto.

Saline’s young Men’s Novice 4 boat (Nolan Dellot, Oliver Mepham, Mike Torssell, Julian Rodriguez and coxswain Jade Hoang) opened the event with a third place finish in their heat race 40 seconds behind Dublin Crew’s winning time of 7:29 and the sixth fastest  time out of the 15 entries.  Saline’s Women’s Junior Varsity 4 entry (Gavin Gallagher, Haley Pfeiffer, Alexis Wolff, Sarah Buckeridge and coxswain Sarah Carter) also finished strongly with a close third place in their heat race 27 seconds behind Dublin Crew’s winning time of 7:58 and only 9 seconds behind the second place finish by Cleveland Scholastic.

Saline’s only medal of the day came in the afternoon when the Men’s Lightweight 8 (Alex Mundorf, Mitch Dellot, Brad Roberts, Ryan Wellings, Jacob Hargrove, Jacob Carlson, Travis Krause, Ben Friman and coxswain Savannah Theisen finished third in the Lightweight 8 finals, 40 seconds behind Upper Canada College’s winning time of 6:10 and just 6 seconds behind second place Westerville.

The Hornets stay closer to home the next two weekends, competing for the HEBDA Cup in Wyandotte on the Detroit River on April 28 and the WiHi Cup on May 5, before heading to Cincinnati for the Midwest Scholastic Rowing Championships on May 12 and closing the season with the State Championships in Grand Rapids on May 19.

 More information can be found at www.salinecrew.org.