March 29 - Dual Scrimmage at Alexandria Boathouse, 7:30 am 

Spring is always tricky on our part of the river.  When W-L arrived Saturday morning, the wind was blowing hard enough to call off the race.  Their boats were sent home, and their team lined up for a 1500-meter erg-off against TCW.  The times are posted here.  But by the time they'd finished, the winds had calmed, so everyone launched (in TC's shells) for 750-meter sprints, which fortunately were completed before the cold winds picked up again. TC came out ahead in all the races (to be fair, W-L was using borrowed shells and oars), so it was a good start for the first, second and girls' lightweight 8s.

photos         results

This morning the conditions couldn't have been better - high 50's, no wind, calm water.  The format was 1500-meter races, followed by 750-meter sprints, with TCW facing West Potomac (WP) and Georgetown Visitation (GV).  In the boys' races, the TC second 8 edged the TC first 8, which beat WP's first 8 by over 7 sec.  The third and freshman 8's beat WP's second 8, and the quad finished ahead of WP by nearly 2 minutes.  The girls dominated as well - the first 8 finishing ahead of WP and GV, the lightweight 8 winning over the GV second 8,  the TCW second 8 beating WP by over 30 sec, and the third 8 winning over both Visitation and WestPo.  All the TC boats also outrowed WP and GV in the 750-meter events.

Results        photos

The storms stayed south, and the conditions were nearly perfect on Noxontown Pond for an exciting afternoon of racing.  TC Crew was facing some of the top teams in the east, and gave the crowd under the tent plenty to cheer about.  The boys second and third 8's and the girls second 8 finished strong in second place, the girls first and lightweight 8's stayed close to powerhouse crews Mt. St. Joseph and Holy Spirit to finish third, and the boys first 8 finished dead even with W-L.  Novice and freshman crews looked great as well, showing poise, skill, and promise.  In the girls first 8 race, TC Williams recaptured the Ward Wallace Cup, a trophy for the annual race between TC and St. Andrew's.

boys results        girls results        photos

The day was warm and the water was calm, with just enough wind to make it interesting as the TC girls returned for a rematch with Holy Spirit and St. Andrews, plus Kent, Georgetown Visitation and that high school from Annandale (Thomas Jefferson).  Private schools Spirit and Kent took all but one first, but TC showed their strength in the first and lightweight categories.  The girls first 8 was second, well ahead of the third-place St. Andrew's crew, and the lightweights stayed with a fast Spirit boat to  finished just about a boatlength behind.  The second, third and freshman 8's were in the middle of the pack, and two novice 8's looked good in their first competitive race.

Results            photos

April 19 - Darrell Winslow Regatta on the Occoquan

At the Occoquan, the TC boys faced many of the same schools they'll see in the Virginia Championship, and established themselves as a team to beat.  The second 8 had the fastest time in the qualifying heats, and won the final over W-L and Westfield.  The order was the same in the third 8 race, with TC boys winning by nearly 5 seconds.  Westfield and W-L were ahead of TC in their qualifying heat of the first 8 race, and McLean surprised them all with a first place finish in the final, where TC took fifth.  The freshman 8 trailed Woodson by just a second for second place, and the novice 8's were fourth and fifth in their races.

Results            photos

The results speak for themselves:  first place for the girls' first, lightweight and third 8's and the boys second 8.  Second place for the boys third, fourth and freshman 8's and the girls second and freshman 8's.  The boys' first 8 missed the cut in a tough two-boat race with Robinson, then went on to win the petite final with a time of 4:48.3.   The girls' lightweight 8 had the big margin of the day, beating McLean by nearly 11 seconds.  The girls first 8 made the Sunday Washington Post, beating Westfield and favorite Robinson with a time of 4:56.8.

Results        Photos

This was race day for the freshman, fourth and novice 8's.  The freshman boys blew through the field in the preliminaries, with the fastest time overall.  In the final, they were less than 3 sec off the lead - but that lead was shared by two boats who tied for first, with TC taking fourth.  The girls fourth 8 took fourth place, and the girls freshman and novice 8's made the final.  TC's boys' fourth 8 was third, in a 3-boat race.

Results          Photos

It was their first time rowing on the Occoquan this season, but for the TC Williams girls crew it was  like home field. The varsity 8, lightweight 8 and third 8 all captured gold - and Virginia state championships - and the second 8 was a bronze medalist in the Virginia Scholastic Rowing Championship Regatta.

The first 8, rowing with a lineup that had been together only a few days, topped a field of 25 boats from around the Commonwealth and DC. They led throughout the race, and held off a late sprint by Robinson to win by nearly 4 seconds. 

The girls' lightweight 8 avenged their loss in the state finals last season, with a commanding 9.2-second open-water win over McLean.  The girls third 8 beat TJ and Robinson for gold.  Their combiner performance won the Titans the girls team trophy for the third year in a row.

On the boys' side, the second varsity 8 continued their winning ways, adding the Virginia championship to their gold medals from the Darrel Winslow and Charlie Butt Regattas.  The boys' 3rd 8 was edged by TJ in a close finish, and won silver.  The boys first 8 finished fifth in the petite final.

Results         Photos

Philadelphia was chilly, rainy, muddy, sunny, windy and warm. A typical Stotesbury weekend. But there was nothing typical about TC Crew's performance on the Schuylkill, the strongest team showing in several years. Three boats were in the finals, four made the semis with two others narrowly missing the cut, and one rowed the time trials as a 7 - and still beat nine other boats.

The Weather Service says two inches of rain fell in Philadelphia on Friday, May 16. If you ask the team, coaches, parents and boosters who braved the elements, a good portion of that flowed through the TC tent, creating a muddy mess. Rowers shivered through time trials, and at the end of the day half the TC boats - girls' senior, lightweight and second 8's and the boys' second 8 - advanced to the semifinals. The girls' third 8, rowing as a junior 8, missed qualifying for the semis by one boat, finishing at 19 in a field of 42. The boys' senior 8 moved well up from last year's position, finishing in the middle of the pack at 21, sandwiched between Washington-Lee and South County. The boys' freshman 8 got their first taste of national-class competition, and finished 28th. The most unusual race of the day was rowed by the boys' third 8. Rowing as a junior 8 with a different lineup than last week's Virginia championship silver medalists, they surprised the crowd on the river when they passed by with the fourth seat empty. Officials had removed the rower at the start because they were concerned he was suffering from hypothermia. The "junior 7" still rowed respectable 5:08.38, finishing 32nd out of 41.

Saturday was as nice a day as Friday was miserable - sunny and clear, warming through the day. The boys' second 8 wound up in a fast semifinal and didn't advance, but the girls' lightweight, second and senior 8's all made it into the finals. The lightweights led early in their final race, but ran into a stiff headwind that slowed them to a fifth place finish behind Holy Sprit, E.L. Crossley, Mt. St. Joe and Winter Park. The girls' second 8 also finished fifth, in a race won by Mt. St. Joseph. The girls' senior 8 was in the infamous lane 6 for the last race of the day, and overcame the dead water by the island to clock a strong fourth-place finish behind Bishop Eustace, Mt. St. Joseph and Holy Spirit.  

Results     Photos

Howdy, folks.  It's really beautiful down here in Oak Ridge, the secret city just north of Knoxville.  Out in the country they got this big ol' TVA pond all set up for boat racin' with a 2k straightaway, nice little launching lagoon, and even a restaurant overlooking the startin' dock so you can sip yourself a beer and watch them high school kids blastin' off in their skinny rowboats.

That'll be enough of that.  The Oak Ridge Rowing Association really does have one of the best facilities we've seen, and made everyone feel at home for the SRAA Nationals Regatta.  The TC presence was limited by the progression rules;  because the boys' first 8 didn't qualify at the Virginia Championship, we couldn't enter the second 8 - despite their winning the state championship.  Rather than reconfigure as a junior 8, they stayed in Virginia to prepare for Canada.  TC was represented by the girls' senior, lightweight and second 8's and the boys' freshman 8 from Stotesbury.

Nationals is becoming a truly national regatta, with schools from Florida and the midwest joining the mostly northeastern crowd that competes at Stotesbury.  Schools like Plant (Tampa), New Trier (Chicago area) and Winter Park (Orlando) make for stiff competition.  This year the races for the senior 8's and 4's had three finals each, which meant that all but a handful of the schools in those categories rowed in some kind of final. 

TC looked good on day one, with the girls' senior and lightweight 8's winning their heats, and the girls' second 8 finishing second to TJ.  The boys' freshmen rowed a strong race, but their fourth place finish didn't advance them to the semifinals.  The girls' lightweights looked especially good beating Winter Park by 2 seconds, and they prepared for the finals on Saturday.

On Saturday, the team arrived at the race course to discover that a semifinal had been added in the girls' lightweight event, even though there were only 15 boats to start with.  At the end of the semi, the same six teams that thought they'd qualified the day before were headed for the finals.  The girls' first and second eights had a tougher time, coming in fourth and sixth in their respective semis.  The lightweights rowed their fastest time of the regatta in the final - but so did everyone else, and TC finished in fifth.  The girls' first 8 took third place in the petite final.  

Results Friday  Saturday           Photos

It was near the end of the girls’ 63-kg senior eight final. In one of the most exciting races of the day, there were only a few seconds separating the top five boats. Someone from an Ontario school was overheard saying “I think we’ve got it. Doesn’t look like those little girls from Virginia will have any kick left.”

Those “little girls from Virginia” were the TC lightweight eight, and showed that they had plenty of kick. They broke out of the pack in the last 300 meters, trailing Toronto’s Havergal College by only 2.5 seconds to take the silver medal.

Canada is a real test for US crews, because the races are 2000 meters and the age and weight classifications are different. But TC has always had success at St. Catharines, and this year was no exception. The lightweights had clocked the best time in the qualifying heats on Saturday, with a 7:10.14. The difference between that time and the winners of the other heats was less than a half second, so everyone expected a close final. And they got it.

Four hours later, the TC senior eight took to the water in their final, and the result was the same – another silver medal. In a rarity for the Canadian championship, all the medals in this event went to US teams. Saratoga Springs won the gold; TC edged Ann Arbor Pioneer for second. The TC senior girls had finished second to the Ann Arbor school in the heats on Saturday, but they had the fourth best time of all the boats in the event, so they were poised for a medal-winning race, and they didn’t disappoint the crowd of parents and teammates whose “Go T-C” cheers could be heard from across Martindale Pond.

In addition to the senior and lightweight eights, the girls’ second eight was split up into a senior and a junior four. The junior four won its qualifying heat on Friday, but missed the cut with a third-place finish in Saturday’s semifinal.

One TC boys’ boat made the finals in Canada. A 72-kg four, made up of rowers from the senior and second eights, finished in fifth place behind four Canadian crews. They’d qualified with third place finishes in their Friday heats and Saturday semifinals. The boy’s senior and second eights rowed in various combinations that included a heavyweight four, 72-kg four, and senior double in addition to the eights. The second eight, rowing in the 72-kg class, finished third in its qualifying heat and had the seventh fastest time overall, missing the final by one place.

Overall, TC finished in 19th place (out of 130 schools) in the point totals. Click here for boat rosters and race summaries.

Results   Friday   Saturday   Sunday     Photos