Bulldogs Finish IRA Racing

Varsity, JV in Petite Final, Frosh 6th in Grand Final

June 2, 2007

The Yale heavyweight rowers finished competition at the 2007 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships on the Cooper River in Camden, N.J. The Bulldogs' first freshman boat took sixth in its grand final while the varsity (3rd) and junior varsity (4th) had better finishes in their petite finals.

The first varsity, which had one of the best semifinal heat times on Friday but finished fourth by a tenth of a second, was just a second off of Cornell's winning time of 5:41.0. Wisconsin was second at 5:41.2 while the Elis came in at 5:42.1.

"They rowed a really good race on Friday in the semis, we were in second place almost entire race," said Yale head coach John Pescatore. "It looked like it would be Harvard and us. Brown and Cal were on other side of Harvard and we didn't know how fast they were coming. We just didn't have it on the last few strokes. We are competitive with those crews. That was the gold, silver and bronze medalists from Sprints in the same semifinal heat."

The Eli varsity eight, which includes Hunter Swartz (stroke), Sean Hurley (seven), Patrick Purdy (six), Charlie Cole (five), Andrew Collard (four), Pieter Morgan (three), Michael Smith (two), Jack Vogelsang (bow) and coxswain Alfred Shikany,

Yale's second varsity took fourth in the petite final with a 5:53.9, which was about three seconds slower than Harvard's B Boat.

The freshman boat, Yale's only heavyweight entree in a grand final, was sixth with a time of 6:00. California won that race at 5:40.

"The freshman boat had to go through the repechage and everyone else had just one race yesterday, so there was not much left in the tank. They improved a lot this spring and got better with each race. Getting to the grand final of a national race is an impressive feat," said Pescatore.

report filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director