PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Lehigh competed in the Dad Vail Regatta this past weekend in full force with eleven entries. The pride of the fleet was the Novice Women’s Eight who raced in a field of 32 boats. On Friday the Eight won by plenty of open water (8 sec.) followed by Saturday morning semifinals which they also took by a (5 sec) length. It was starting to feel like de ja vue of 2000 going into the finals with Lehigh in lane 4. After 1500 meters Lehigh was down four seats but moving on Purdue University. Lehigh turned on a gallant sprint but crossed just 0.9 seconds behind for the silver medal. The Women’s Novice Eight consisted of coxswain –Chelsea Crisafulli, stroke seat-Jen Lofaro, 7-Jen Keefe, 6-Alix Howie, 5-Kaitlyn McCracken, 4-Elen Sweeet, 3-Katie Ginda, 2-Emily Marshall, bow-Dawn Dayawon
In the Men’s Varsity Eight event Lehigh took second to Jacksonville in Friday’s heats to skip the repechage and advance directly to semifinals. In the semifinals, the mountain hawks placed fourth behind Marietta, Purdue and Colorado to advance to Petite finals. In the finals Lehigh was in fourth going into the last 500 meters by about 5 seats to St. Joseph’s. Lehigh made a final charge and pulled just short of even to finish with a time of 5:55.46, just 0.39 of a second behind St. Joe’s. The order of finish: Purdue, Jacksonville, St. Joseph’s, Lehigh, U. Minnesota, LaSalle. Lehigh’s lineup was coxswain –Dave Highhill, stroke seat-Matt Galuska, 7-Phil Bresnahan, 6-Chris Hause, 5-Mark Chandler, 4- Andrew Younghein, 3-Sam Anderson 2-Jon Winter, bow-Todd Mickelson.
The Novice Men’s Eight were also on track to make the grand finals after wining their heat over second place Grand Valley and advancing to semifinals. Unfortunately, Lehigh whiffed the first few strokes at the start and fell in to last place after ten strokes. The novice men spent the rest of the race trying to catch the leaders but ended with a third place finish behind first place Grand Valley and U. Cal- Long Beach. The men’s pair of Mike Flanagan and Tim Matthews also advanced to semifinals after finishing second in their heat behind Carnegie Mellon.
