Oct. 21, 2007

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Bulldogs' 1V took eighth in the Championship Eights of the Head of the Charles Regatta, Sunday. The Elis' 2V also competed in the race and ended up 38th, which marked an improvement on last year's 43rd place finish. On Saturday, Yale entered a boat into the Club Eights, which finished in 63rd as a result of two minutes in penalties.

In the Championship Eights, the 1V of Nolan Maher (stroke), Andrew Collard (seven), Pieter Morgan (six), James Tormey (five), Jack Vogelsang (four), Lucas Spielfogel (three), Max Kramer (two), Matthew Barber (bow) and Michael Ciccotti (cox) recorded a time of 14:44.930, which was good enough for fifth best among collegiate teams competing in the race. US Rowing (14:03.711), Wisconsin (14:30.018) and Brown (14:31.877) claimed first, second and third respectively. The 2V clocked in with a time of 15:43.906.

"When we started out, we had a good rhythm," senior captain Jack Vogelsang said. "But we just weren't aggressive enough. It was an extremely competitive regatta."

In the Club Eights, Yale's boat incurred two minutes of penalties to adjust their finishing time from 15:56.174 to 17:56.174. Without the penalties, the raw time would have placed the boat in 15th place behind Clemson (15:50.183) and ahead of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (15:59.700).

The boat was penalized for an Unauthorized or Poor Crossing when they collided with the Dartmouth boat early in the race. During the collision, the Yale stroke's oar snapped, and he was forced to jump out of the boat. The two boats collided again later in the race. The series of events likely kept the boat from finishing in the medals.

"It just attests to how crazy this regatta can get," added Vogelsang.

The Elis travel south to Princeton, N.J., on Oct. 28 for the Princeton Chase.

Report filed by Nicholas Thorne '08, Yale Sports Publicity