DeMatha Crew at WMIRA Championships

This weeked the DeMatha crew team traveled to Occoquan reservoir to compete in the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Rowing Association (WMIRA) Championship. At the race they entered four varsity eights and two novice eights.

The varsity eight, second varsity eight, and first novice eight each had a qualification race to advance to the grand finals. All boats were able to advance by placing within the top three of their races. This led to all varsity and novice boats making the grand finals.

The second novice eight was able to medal by placing 2nd in their level while the first novice eight placed 4th in theirs. The fourth varsity boat placed 3rd, the third varsity eight placed 6th, and the varsity eight placed 6th, all in different competition levels. The varsity eight was beat out by St. Albans by inches. The second varsity did not finish due to equipment issues.

Senior captain Collin Mester said, “This is the first time all boats have made the Grand Finals and I think this shows how hard we all worked as a team.” Collin seemed very happy with the results saying, “It’s tough being in the varsity eight and being last, but we need to understand how good the competition is and how close we’ve been able to get to them since our last race and I think we should be proud of ourselves for that. Now we just need to focus on getting faster for Nationals and Stotes.”

Covid has also been an issue for the team with multiple cases being seen, including two members of the varsity eight who fell ill. In their place, two sophomores stepped up and filled the role. Collin said, “I think these were the best two guys to fill their spot, they’re both sophomores but I think they were the best people to fill their spots.”

This is not the team’s last race. Next week they will bring select boats to their next three races, those being Mid-Atlantic Youth Championships, Stotesbury Cup, and SRAA National Championships.

Senior Ben Tarnosky said, “At these races there are gonna be a lot of fast teams and it’ll be a real challenge for us, but I think we’ll be ready for it.” Senior captain Preston Valentine added, “These races are really gonna test us to see if we can hang with the best and I’m ready to leave everything out on the race course.”

The team is anxiously waiting now to see who will be able to compete in these events.