Last Saturday, Villanova’s women’s rowing team closed out its fall season at the Bucknell Invite in Shamokin Dam, PA, where two out of its three boats finished first in their respective races. 

“The team was excited and ready to see how they stack up against a historically formidable competitor,” head coach Carissa Adams said. “I think we always end up having good competition there on a good race course. The conditions were excellent, there was little to no wind, the sun came out, it was flat water, very nice conditions and a great opportunity to go against Bucknell.”

The Wildcat’s Novice Eight crew started the day with tough competition against three of Bucknell’s Novice Eights. The V8 team, besides junior Gianna Zajac, featured mainly under classmen and walk-ons, including sophomores Maeve Bonass, Emmi Stanton and Alexa Sitterly and freshmen Natalia Brozyna, Rachel Patrykus, Taylor Pansy, Katie MacClary and Meg Wolfand. The young crew finished third, crossing over with a time of 7:12.69. 

“I thought they did a really good job,” Adams said. “This was their first 2K so it was good to give them a taste of what our spring racing season will be like. I was proud of their performance and how they came together.”

The young boat’s time was just six seconds behind the Bison’s winning A-boat and four seconds behind their winning B-boat. 

“I think the freshmen are doing really great so far with improving and adding to the culture of the team,” graduate student and co-captain Kara Dempsey said. “I know that it is a really hard adjustment for a lot of freshmen coming in. As a freshman, when I walked onto the team, it was really hard for me. Now I’m a fifth-year, and I’ve been doing it for five years. I think the friends that you make on the team can really make or break the experience so the community aspect is really important to it as well.”

The Wildcat’s 2V8 boat gave the entire team its first win of the day. Composed of senior Julia Kreisi; junior Grace Quirk; sophomores Cate Donnelly and Sabrina Pauli and freshmen Hannah Jenkins, MaKenna Davis, Mary Tracy, Sage Santora and Silvana Torres, the squad had a 12-second edge over the Bisons, finishing in 7:03.12. 

“I thought the 2V8 had a really strong race,” Adams said. “We had made a few lineup changes and I think that served us well. They looked really confident going down the race course. We were missing one of our team members from our 2V8 so we took one of the walk-on boat’s rowers, freshman Mary Tracy, and she did a fantastic job.” 

In the third and final race of the day the ‘Cats put forth some of their best upperclassmen. The crew, composed of sophomores Sarah Robillard and Maggie Coyne; juniors Isabella Thorne and Kira Capaldi (who is a recent transfer from Bucknell) and seniors Madison Girard, Jadyn Ramos, Cecilia Jenkins and Anna Flynn and fifth-year Dempsey, built their lead early on in the first 1000 of the race. 

Although the Bison threatened to close that gap, the ‘Cats held their lead throughout the second half of the race, winning by an 11-second difference and claiming their best time of the day of 6:43.15. 

A large part of this victory, according to Dempsey, came from the coxswains.

“The coxswains are super important at keeping the energy up for the boat,” Dempsey said. “One really important thing for me that I get from the coxswain is that we as rowers want to keep our heads straight and not look out of the boat at all so coxswains are super important to letting us know where we are in relation to other crews. We took a lead against Bucknell boat pretty early on in the race so it’s up to our coxswains to let us know that and use that as a form of encouragement to keep trying to lengthen the gap.”

Looking forward to the training on land rather than water in the winter, the ‘Cats are focused on two things during their off season: fitness and community. 

“That time is important for us to work on our fitness,” Dempsey said. “This is more challenging mentally because being on land is completely different from being out in a boat on water so I think it will be really important for our team to just focus on our goals and keep reminding ourselves of where we want to be when the spring rolls around.”