Delaware Takes Three Wins at the Kerr Cup

High temperatures and a stiff headwind accompanied the Kerr Cup Regatta in Philadelphia. The entire Delaware team, both Heavyweights and Lightweights, notched three wins and four top three finishes across the day. Most impressively, the Varsity Lightweight Eight finished second against a strong heavyweight field.

After qualifying through heats and semifinals, the new lineup of McCullough, Pereira, Hurley, Light, Buck, Kungl, Dough, Marello, and Snow exploded out of the starting gates and after a strong move before the bridge, led the race by one length. Saint Joseph’s University challenged the Hens along the last one thousand meters and came away with a win after a strong second half. Delaware finished open water over the rest of the field, defeating the heavyweights from Temple, Virginia, Marist, and Drexel. The Second Varsity Lightweight Eight finished in third place, soundly beating Temple, Saint Joseph’s, and Gonzaga while staying within one length of Drexel and half a length behind the University of California-San Diego. Rounding off the Eights, the Third Varsity Lightweight Eight finished sixth in their event while the Fourth Lightweight Eight won the Light Eight event over Fairfield. In addition to big boat racing, multiple Lightweights broke down into Coxed Fours.

Racing in the Lightweight Four event, four of the oarsmen from the Second Lightweight Eight dueled the Temple Lightweights, with each of their fours comprised of half of their top Varsity Eight. The Blue Hens finished in third with another coxed four placing in fourth. A Junior Varsity Four took home a gold medal and the Heavyweight Varsity Four finished sixth in the final. The Freshmen Four of Pfander, Poll, Buddie, McCarthy, and coxswain Lynn took home a tight win over Drexel University’s novices. For the Varsity Heavyweights, it was another week of growth.

After a clean heat and a poor semifinal, the Heavyweight Varsity Eight were set to race the Petite Final where, after a rocky start and jumbled first thousand, the crew managed to reset and negative split the second half by six seconds, taking over one length out of the field before finishing in fifth for an eleventh place finish out of twenty boats. The Heavyweight team, about ten seconds off the standard they are looking to achieve, will regroup this week before a major test in Tennessee at the SIRA Championships.

Next weekend in Annapolis, Maryland, the Lightweights will get back into their match racing against EARC teams when they look to upset Harvard and the U.S. Naval Academy.