The Case Crew Club opened its season two weekends ago with a strong showing in the Head of the Cuyahoga Regatta.

The Spartans competed in 10 races in the daylong event and won four of them. The Regatta is the annual event of the Cleveland Rowing Foundation. The foundation is supported by eight rowing programs including Case Western’s team. In addition to Case, the member programs include the Cleveland State University Rowing Team, the John Carroll University Rowing team, the Western Reserve Rowing Association (an adult program), the Cleveland Youth Rowing Association, the Saint Ignatius High School’s crew team, Saint Joseph Academy Girls Crew and the Shaker Heights High School Crew.

The regatta brought together over 1,300 rowers to compete on the 4800-meter course and has been run annually since 1996.

This year, the Spartans came in first place in the men’s 8+ varsity race, the men’s 1x varsity race, the men’s 4+ novice race and the women’s 4+ novice race. The Spartans also has a second place finish in the men’s novice 8+ race, a fifth place finish in the women’s 4+ race and a pair of third place finishes in women’s varsity 1x and women’s novice 8+ races.

For those unfamiliar with rowing, the race name is the number of rowers per boat with a plus “+” indicating a coxswain, or simply the cox, on the boat. The cox steers the boat and coordinates the rowers.

The Spartans had strong times in their wins. The men’s 8+ varsity race that brought home first place was comprised of Jack Ingles, Gavin Brown, Liam Hoye, Luke Fakult, Chris Ryu, Evan Laneese, Lucas Vroege, Masato Miyagi and their cox Sarah Nia Coleman. They raced a 17:01.10 minute race finishing a mere 31.36 seconds in front of the number two boat. The men’s 4+ novice race team was comprised of cox Josh Zuccala and rowers Phil Smith, Matt Hoffa, Bill Tomaszewski and Clay Inman, they raced a 18:09.59 with the second place boat clocking in at 19:32.70.

The victorious novice 4+ team of Elizabeth Tobin, Grace Karabinus, Ilana Roth, Julia Asjes with cox Dylan Brown finished with a time of 26:39.24 crushing the second place boat that finished at the 31:01.94 mark.

The Spartans will be looking to continue their success this weekend as they compete in the Head of the Ohio Regatta in Pittsburgh PA.

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