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Sarah Stoffelsma pulls the stroke's oar for Victoria, winner of varsity eight race.CINDY BLANCHARD/STAFF

Regatta: Silver medals boost Jaguars' spirits

Web posted March 23, 1997

By Robert Cross
Staff Writer

After the rowers had pulled their last stroke and coxswains had yelled their last commands, Dartmouth won the overall Top Point Trophy for the second time in the 14th annual Augusta Invitational Regatta on the Savannah River Saturday.

``We were pretty pleased,'' said Big Green coach Dick Grossman. ``This sets the tone for the season.''

Dartmouth used 10 days of spring training on the Savannah River to its advantage to put all of its boats into the regatta finals. Dartmouth medaled in four of them, including winning the Presidents Cup Trophy for winning the Men's Lightweight Open event and defeating archrival Columbia University by just six seconds.

``Last year, Columbia beat us here and that gave them a lot of confidence entering the season, said Grossman. ``Hopefully, this will do the same for us.''

The Vermont school uses the regatta to culminate a grueling two weeks of training.

``When the regatta was moved up a couple of days it gave us a great way to end our time here,'' said Grossman. ``When we get back home we will go back inside because of the cold for another week.''

Augusta State coach Johnathan Evans said that they were going to surprise some people during the regatta. They did by advancing to the finals and winning two silver medals - the Men's Novice Four and the Women's Novice Four. Both crews lost to powerful crews from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

The women had to fight off an aggressive boat from Bucknell University for the first 1,000 meters until the Lady Jaguars pulled ahead for good.

``I knew something good would come from all the hard work the entire team has been putting in,'' said men's coxswain Jay Skillz .

The men advanced to the finals easily by winning their qualifying heat, but couldn't overtake the Mocs on the 1,500-meter course.

``I felt that we could catch 'em,'' said stroke Dago Edalgo. ``Our coxswain told us that we were catching them. He really kept our confidence high during the race. (But) UTC did a real good job.

With the silver medals the Jaguars are confident going into the rest of the season

``I'm very proud,'' said No. 2 seat Will Kennedy, predicting that ``UTC will go down in Tennessee.''

SOUR LUCK: One of the most unlucky crews in Saturday's regatta is the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

This time last year, the night before the team's departure for Augusta, its trailer, with all of the shells and equipment was set ablaze. Most of the boats were destroyed along with the trailer.

``We never found out who did it,'' said UTC coach Robert Espesth.

Last week, the Mocs were practicing on the Tennessee river and two eights were swamped in a sudden wind storm. No rowers were hurt, but we stopped rowing for a week, so the school could review what happened,'' said Espesth.

TRADITION: The University of Central Florida women's crew uniforms make them look like Bumble Bees.

They are black and yellow striped with black shorts.

``It started in the '70s when the men's team was just getting started,'' said UCF coach Chris Deatrick. ``Everybody was just buzzing when they first saw them.''

HOW 'BOUT THOSE DOGS: Only in its second year the University of Georgia has found its way to the medal platform.

The Bulldogs won its first Augusta Invitational Regatta medal Saturday with a silver in the Women's Lightweight Novice Four.