SHELTON, Conn. --

CGA men's rowing traveled to Indian Wells State Park on the shore of the Housatonic River for the 2025 edition of the Head of the Housatonic. You could say we were able to get in all our racing in the calm before the storm as we had very nice weather before a classic Northeaster bore down on CT the next day.

The Head of the Housatonic is our first race of the fall and for our walk-on novices, their first rowing race. We were able to race forty-four athletes with one rower competing twice. We competed in three eights in the collegiate (non-IRA) event and one eight in the collegiate novice eight event.

First up were the collegiate eights. Starting first in the field of twenty-three boats was our "A" boat. They were able to hold their position and finished in third place behind Lehigh and Fairfield and ahead of the rest of the field. The 1V had a solid race and as 4/c Noah Rodger, one of two 4/c in the boat, noted, "…the crew performed well… I am excited to see our progress after winter training…." Our 2V and 3V were in the same race, finishing 12th and 22nd respectively. Of note, our third eight had several novices in the boat including 2/c Isaac Kreft and 2/c William (Harrison) Wade, exchange cadets from the US Air Force Academy.

Next up was the novice eight. For most of the nine rowers in the boat this was their first rowing race, and it was a good way to start their rowing career. The boat started first, pulled away from the field including the USMMA that started right behind them, and won the race by 12 seconds over second place UMass. Coach Don Ross (volunteer coach, former CGA rower, and 1977 graduate) was proud of the boats performance and noted that he was, "particularly delighted that the crew felt they'd had their best row of their young careers. Their efforts were a testament to the hard work the entire team has been putting in this fall."

Complete results are available HERE

We now turn our attention to the Head of the Charles, where just the 1V will be racing, next Sunday and the Wormtown Chase in Worchester, MA where the whole team will be in action to wrap up the fall campaign. After that we more indoors to ergs, weights, circuits, etc... in preparation for the 2026 spring campaign that will kick off with our "Return to the River" dinner on Saturday February 21st, 2026, and our annual trip to Clemson.

The complete boating for the races were:

1V eight:
Kimber Moring(Weaverville, NC)
Benjamin Dush(Henderson, NV)
Nicholas Salvati(Monroeville, NJ)
Harrison Williams(Bellevue, WA)
Jonah McFarland(Seattle, WA)
Noah Rodger
Damian Olechowski(Brighton, MA)
Lucas Guerra(Charlottesville, VA)
Thomas Skowron 
.
2V eight:
Brent Fournier(Bedford, NH)
Michael Lee(Cypress, CA)
Maddox Holmes-Selby(San Clemente, CA)
Eli Chapman(Daphne, AL)
Matthew Turner(Brookfield, WI)
Charles Gord 
Colin Griffee(Seattle, WA)
James Hebebrand(Gainesville, FL)
Zac Gamble(Waterford, CT)
.
3V eight:
Riley Ritter(Charlotte, NC)
Nathan Williams(Beaverton, OR)
Joe Reynolds 
Jack Schmidt(Staten Island, NY)
Isaac Kreft 
Harrison Wade 
Logan Grenier 
Joshua Apedo 
Caleb Mattingly 
.
Novice eight:
Caleb Mattingly 
Evan Eby 
Joshua Bowman 
Mason Nims 
William Griffin 
Joshua Murphy 
Colt Bergman 
William Schold 
Anthony DeRosa