Liberty University Club Sports Athletics
Crew teams prep for Saturday's debut at Head of the Ohio
9/27/2016 12:00:00 AM | Rowing
Construction on a new boathouse at Mitchell's Point Marina — owned and operated by Jeff and Debbie Prowse, head coach of Liberty University's men's and women's crew teams — is nearly complete to house the Flames' three eight-seat boats, four four-seaters, and two pairs on Smith Mountain Lake.
This weekend, men's and women's rowers will travel to Pittsburgh with three of those skulls to test the waters at their first of three fall regattas, the 30th annual Head of the Ohio.
"I'm excited for them to get on this course," Prowse said. "A lot of the head races are out in rural areas, out in the country, whereas this one is in downtown Pittsburgh. The rowers will have to navigate under eight bridges and the weather's looking nice so there should be a lot of spectators."
Liberty will enter a women's open four and a women's pair as well as a men's novice four in Saturday's 5,000-meter races, which range from one entry in the women's pair to 14 in the women's four.
"The men have been looking really good as far as their conditioning," Prowse said. "We're working on their technique to get ready for this race. With the women, we're working on our lineups and continuing to work on technique. We have strong girls, they just need to row together to get better."
The men's novice four will compete against boats from four other schools, including Pittsburgh, in a final set for 1 p.m. That lineup will feature four sophomores — Spencer Barrett in the stroke seat, Zach Moore (three seat), sophomore Josh Elliott (bow), and Savanna Perry (coxswain) — and one freshman, Ryan Krupansky (two seat).
"Spencer sets a really good pace for them to follow and he's really strong mentally, so he's good to have at stroke seat," Prowse said. "Ryan (Krupansky) is a freshman, but he's an experienced rower. He's used to skulling (rowing with two oars), but he'll be sweeping (rowing with one) at this race."
Liberty's women's open four will start its final at 12:30 p.m., racing against two boats from VCU, two each from Robert Morris and Carnegie Mellon, both located in Pittsburgh, and single skulls from Pitt, Ohio, Cleveland State, Cincinnati, and Miami of Ohio. The Lady Flames' lineup includes junior Meribeth Klein at coxswain, sophomore Baillie Knecht (stroke), junior Lydia Miller (a converted coxswain at two seat), junior Allie Coughlin (three seat), and junior Katrina Ramos (bow).
Coughlin will also serve at stroke on the women's open pair, rowing with sophomore Moriah List (bow).
Numbers are down this season with a few novice and a couple experienced rowers from last year's team not returning. Prowse hopes to grow her combined roster of 15 men and women to close to twice that total for the spring semester through tryouts in mid-October.
"We're still looking for some more novice rowers," she said, noting that she'd like to have at least nine novice men and eight novice women plus two novice coxswains.
The team will also bring three novice men and one novice woman who have yet to compete, so they can get a taste of what to expect in the future, possibly as early as at the Oct. 29 Head of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia or the Nov. 5 Head of the Hooch in Chattanooga, Tenn.
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer
