WORCESTER, Mass. --

Last year, after NERCs, the article started with the sentence, "It was a good day for racing and team did their best to take advantage of the flat conditions…" This year, 1/c Nate Pokress described it as, "Comedically windy…" 

While the day started sunny and calm, the wind continued to build until the conditions had deteriorated so much that all the racing was cancelled. The story really starts the day before when based on the predicted weather conditions the race schedule was flipped so that the 1Vs raced first (in the hope we could at least crown a New England champion – which we were able to do – congratulations Trinity College). 

We arrived at the New England Rowing Championships (NERCs) with four boats entered – a 1V8, 2V8, 3V8, and a 4+. Each of the eights were scheduled to race a heat in the morning and a final in the afternoon. The 4+ was a final only to be raced as the first races of the afternoon. 

First up in the morning was the 1V eight racing against Bowdoin College, Tufts University and D1 rival MIT with the top two advancing to the grand final and the other two boats advancing to the petite final. CGA had a solid race, but we could not match the speed of MIT and Tufts and finished with a solid third place and lane one for the petite final. 

For the 2V eight our heat included Wesleyan, Tufts, and Boston College. As was the case with the 1V the top two crews advanced to the grand final and the other two boats advanced to the petite. It was a solid race for a crew that has made a great deal of progress over the last few weeks and a third-place finish. 

The 3V had a loaded heat with William, MIT, Tufts, and WPI. The boat continues to race hard and develop, but could not reach the top three and was slated to race in the Petite final in the afternoon before the tempest blew in. 

As the afternoon start the first boats to the line with the fours. For our 4+, it was wild at the start, with several restarts and two crew not making it off the line for the actual race. They smashed there way through the waves but could not match the speed of Trinity or Colby.  

The last official races of the day were the men's 1V petite and grand finals. A men's varsity race normally takes around 6 minutes to complete. Saturday, with the wind and waves, not a single crew went under 7 minutes and there were a few over 8 minutes. We got off to a shaky start, but our training on the Thames paid off and we were able to handle the rough water, move through WPI and take the win in the Petite Final for seventh place in New England. 

Our 2V was already in the staging area when the races were canceled. With permission they moved into their lane and crashed their way down the course even throwing in a sprint to finish the trip back. For some reason they like head winds and rough water! 

It was too bad for all the athletes that have trained all spring for these races, but the judge referees made the right call ending racing for the day. 

CGA men's will be back up to Worcester for the National Invitation Rowing Championships on Sunday 11 May. 

Complete results are available here:

The lineups for racing were: 

1V:
Kimber Moring(Weaverville, NC)
James Chase(Greenbrae, CA)
Benjamin Dush(Henderson, NV)
Jonah McFarland(Seattle, WA)
Benjamin Coutu(Juneau, AK)
Nicholas Salvati(Monroeville, NJ)
Harrison Williams(Bellevue, WA)
Nate Pokress(Arlington, MA)
Sean Francis(Plymouth, MA)

2V:
Brent Fournier(Bedford, NH)
Lucas Guerra(Charlottesville, VA)
Maddox Holmes-Selby(San Clemente, CA)
AJ Buzzelli(Acworth, GA)
Eliot Maravich(Pittsburgh, PA)
Michael Lee(Cypress, CA)
Seth Pettis(Columbus, OH)
Eli Chapman(Daphne, AL)
Damian Olechowski(Brighton, MA)

3V:
Riley Ritter(New York, NY)
James Hebebrand(Gainesville, FL)
Moses Wiens(Spokane, WA)
Parker Anselmi(Payallup, WA)
Ty Lauritzen(Issaquah, WA)
Colin Griffee(Seattle, WA)
Zac Gamble(Waterford, CT)
Jackson Curry(Bridgewater, VA)
Maxwell Penella(Arlington, VA)

4V:
Charles Sokolove(Alexadnria, VA)
Jackson Mamock(Sterrett, AL)
Phillip Jones(Fairfax, VA)
Jack Schmidt(Staten Island, NY)
Matthew Turner(Brookfield, WI)