The Mathews High School varsity crew capped off a successful rowing season with a strong performance in the 69th annual Canadian Secondary Schools Rowing Championships at St. Catherines, Ontario.
The MHS men’s senior four captured a silver finish out of 25 entries from Canada, the U.S. and Scotland, and the senior 63 KG women’s double placed sixth out of 23 entries. Mathews entered six events in the competition, which was held on June 6, 7 and 8, with those two boats making it all the way through preliminary heats and semifinals into the championship race to vie for gold.
Racing in the senior men’s four, Blue Devils Phillip Machen, Kyle Moran, Tucker Blackwell, Lance South and coxswain Kaitlyn Thompson won the fastest of four preliminary heats, advancing to Saturday’s semifinals. Mathews won again, posting the second fastest time of the two semifinals with a time of 7:05.385, behind local powerhouse Ridley College (7:05.086).
Racing in the final, Mathews, the only U.S. crew, lined up in lane 5 between Ridley and Shawnigan with Brockville, Vancouver (another B.C. powerhouse) and Simcoe flanking in the outside lanes. Mathews was first out of the gate and held its lead until Ridley pulled through. It then became a 2,000 meter fight between Brockville, MHS and Shawnigan to the finish line where Ridley took gold (6:39.011), Mathews won silver (6:43.537) and Brockville narrowly won bronze (6:43.540), beating Shawnigan (6:43.567).
On the Lady Devils’ side, lightweight seniors Taylor Williams and Mikaela Extine made the finals in the senior women’s 63 KG double taking sixth out of 23 entries and also made the semifinals for the senior women’s open weight double event, posting 12th out of 39 entries.
Junior MHS girls Lilly Thompson, April Young, Katelyn James and Logan Howlett with cox Brandon Smith faced very tough competition in the women’s senior four event. Unfortunately, Howlett did not make the under 16 on Jan. 1, 2014 birthday cut; so the girls had to compete in the senior event. Despite this, the brave foursome stepped up and made the semifinals, finishing with the ninth fastest time of 25 entries.
“This year’s Canadian Schoolboys was one of the toughest and fastest we have seen,” head coach Tim Ulsaker said. “After a continual series of bad weather and hard races all spring, our men’s senior four and the girls’ boats still managed to get faster every week, which is the name of the game. For the men, to top winning Stotesbury’s King’s Club Cup with a silver finish behind a very strong and undefeated Ridley crew is surely a David and Goliath performance. The results our young junior women and our two seniors in the double turned in were truly a brave and strong performance.”