Pioneer LogLewis & Clark College’s Student-Run Newspaper

Crew spring season opens

March 12, 2010

by Lindsey Bosse

Imagine: Early in the morning, when most of campus is still asleep and not even Templeton is bustling, the crew team is meeting to train. The team spent a majority of its training time on land earlier in the season, and now is incorporating more and more water practices. Five days a week, alternating between morning and afternoon, the crew team is buffing up for its spring season, which starts this weekend in Salem.

A typical water practice takes a tad more preparation than most other sports. The team meets and drives down to its boathouse in Sellwood. Before getting in the water, there are logistics to figure out.
“The boats are heavy, and we have to carry them, and we have to match people who are carrying them by height,” said Samira Tristani-Firouzi (’13).  

Once in the water, there are a series of drills for the rowers. Sometimes they work on rowing in time with each other, other times they strive for distance per stroke, and other drills include acceleration and speed. For a couple of hours, the team tears up its part of the Willamette, working on synchronization and muscle tone.

The men’s team is coming back from a good fall. Its end of season saw a few places in several tournaments, but no gold.

“We weren’t able to capitalize on our talent,” said coach Sam Taylor.

Going into this spring season, the men have a strong team of 11 competitors. For the women, the team has a majority of novice rowers. There are 16 girls overall, 14 of whom are novices. The women’s team is gaining strength in their novice athletes, and the varsity rowers are fast.

“We’re crossing our fingers; we did well in the fall,” said Firouzi.

The men are looking at a team title and conference already. They are looking to expand on the strength they exuded last season and actually take the awards they meant to win last fall. The women too are showing high ambition in their novice players.

“We’ll see how far we can go,” said Taylor. “They have high standards.”