NEIRA and States
June 4, 2016
This past weekend, the Hingham Crew team participated in NEIRA (New England Interscholastic Rowing Association) on Saturday, and MPSRA (Massachusetts Public School Rowing Association) on Sunday.
Every year, Hingham and its competitors train through the fall, winter, and spring for this specific weekend. NEIRA was held on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, a course the Hingham crew team is very familiar with. NEIRA is an all day event with the first race starting at 8:00am and the last at 5:15pm.
The NEIRA head to head 1500 meter race included twenty six teams such as Phillips Exeter Academy, Kent, Saint Paul’s School, and Hingham. Both boys and girls entered three varsity eights, making that 54 Hingham rowers to compete in this extremely competitive event.
In the past, Hingham Crew performed exceptionally well at NEIRAS, with the V1 girls placing third out of all last year and V1 boys placing first in the petite final. This year, the V1 girls finished second in the petite final and the boys finished fourth in the grand final.
Junior and V1 rower Jack Metzger reflected on his race, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed at the outcomes, but all things considered we raced hard and did our best. Beating Exeter in the petite finals during the last 250 meters in one of the hardest sprints of my high school rowing career represented a lot of growth, and was definitely the highpoint of the weekend.”
Lucy Walsh, a sophomore, rower shared her thoughts about his weekend saying, “Although we didn’t win, it was still a fun way end to the season. We’re all planning on working hard over the summer and fall to hopefully do better at NEIRA next year.”
The MPSRA included public schools across Massachusetts including Bromefield, Milton, Brookline, and Duxbury Bay. The event was also a 1500m piece, where top two finishers advanced to the grand final and bottom two going on to participate in the petite final. The boys V1 came in fourth in the grand final, and the girls V1 won by 63 seconds in the petite final as well.
2016 has proved to be a very developmental year for HHSRA. The girls have had Dusan Nikolic, Lenny Manning, and now Gavin Kelly as their head coach in the past three seasons. The boys also got a new coach last fall, coach Lenny Manning. The girls are losing three seniors: Sydney Blasetti, Maddy Townsend, and Lauren Kourafas; while the boys are losing eight: Cam Baker, Alexander Hicks, Kyle Letorney, Max Slane, Sean Cunningham, Bryan Dettman, Jack Lemanski, and Patrick Owens.
This coming fall, the crew team will be very young team with two relatively new head coaches. The preparations and training for NEIRA and MPSRA in spring of 2017 will start as early as next month.
