Lake Brandt, Greensboro, NC – Greensboro Crew showed speed and form on a glorious spring morning to win the inaugural cross-town duel over High Point today.
After racing most of the spring season under the combined HPG Rowing umbrella, the squads broke up by training base location for the two clubs’ first official racing encounter.
With Greensboro still in its first year of racing it was agreed that the races would be between middle school and novice rowers, who are in their first year of rowing. Greensboro Crew boated two crews for the race while High Point had one.
The distance was 1,250 meters.
All three crews jumped out quickly and evenly of at the start. However, within 200 meters one of the Greensboro Crews experienced a near boat stopping crab, which all but ruled them out of contention.
The other Greensboro Crew, coxed by Ella Nichols, did not miss a beat and capitalized on the distraction by taking a enthusiastic move on High Point and pulled ahead to a half boat length lead.
The margin between High Point and Greensboro stayed relatively the same as the crews raced down Lake Brandt toward a rapidly approaching finish line.
Sensing the thrill of victory in the final 200 meters Greensboro Crew raised their cadence in a brilliant burst of speed to win by open water.
The winning Greensboro Crew boat was comprised of coxswain Ella Nichols, stroke Ryan LaPierre, Hadley Cowan, Corinne Alt, Kate Messick, Kennedi Ratcliffe, Kate Cole, Grace Denenny, and Keagan O’Connell,
After the initial race all three crews turned around and competed for an additional race over 500m. The winning Greensboro Crew from the previous race locked oars with High Point in the first 10 strokes but the coaches allowed the race to continue.
Ella Nichols’ Greensboro Crew was the quicker boat to recover and soon both crews were quickly making chase against the other leading Greensboro Crew.
Ella’s crew found the speed needed to win the race with the second Greensboro Crew in second place in an almost dead heat with High Point.
