Crew teams open season with loss to UCF

Rollins’ Crew team faced off against the UCF Knights for their home season opener in the Metro Cup.

During the 43rd annual event on Saturday, March 3, the teams squared off for multiple races on Lake Maitland.

In a spectacular come-from-behind win, the Rollins Varsity Four defeated the Knights by six seconds with a 6:49.5 time. This team consisted of Cameron Boyd ‘20, Connor Stolp ‘21, Micheal Pakuris ‘21, Alyssa Rabade ‘19, and Mitchell Laughlin ‘20.

Unfortunately, the two other men’s teams, the JV 4 and Novice 4, both came up a little short in the expected outcome of a win. The Knights edged a victory over the Tars JV 4 with a two-second margin.

The women’s teams were not as successful. The Knights defeated the Tars in all five events.  The Tars did endure tough water conditions; nevertheless, this resulted in an easy victory for the Knights.

Samantha Talucci ‘20 explained how the team must respond moving forward for the rest of the season.

“Our race this past weekend against UCF was just a starting point for the season. If we always race teams that we are equal to or better, we will never be able to improve,” she said.

“Also, when we get to bigger races, we will be seeing all different levels so we have to be prepared for each. We still have two more home races to just keep improving our times and away races after that.”

The Tars’ Head Coach Shawn Pistor spoke on Saturday’s Metro Cup: “We have a lot of work ahead of us, but nothing our team can’t handle and nothing we haven’t overcome in previous years.”

The next regatta will be against the Stetson Hatters here at Lake Maitland for the Rollins Invitational on Saturday, March 10.

The Tars look to bounce back and continue to improve and pull off a victory on the water as they continue their 2018 season.

Talucci said, “For this coming weekend, we have set a goal time to go down the course and that is what we are working towards and working on technical things. As a team and especially as a boat, we all want to achieve the goals we set out for but there are different mile markers we must hit each practice so we can make the goals.”