Liberty's women's Novice 4 earned gold medals and the silver cup as the first-place club finishers.
Rowers qualify three boats for ACRA Championships with strong finishes at SIRA regional regatta
4/23/2025 4:50:00 PM | Rowing
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Liberty will send a men's Double and women's Novice and Varsity 4 crews back to Oak Ridge, Tenn., for the May 16-18 club national races.
Two of the six boats Liberty University's men's and women's rowing teams entered into this past Friday's and Saturday's SIRA Championships at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, Tenn., recorded podium finishes.
That was the prerequisite set by Head Coach Debbie Prowse for crews to advance to the May 16-18 ACRA Championships, the national regatta for club teams held at the same site.
The Lady Flames' Women's Novice 4, featuring graduate coxswain Ariana Davis, freshman stroke Mary Bailey, senior Rebecca Couric, junior Liza Perdew, and sophomore Grace Cornell in the bow, placed third in the 2,000-meter club and open combined A Final in 8 minutes, 14.877 seconds. However, they were awarded gold medals and the silver cup for finishing first among club teams, behind only NCAA Division I programs Louisville (7:59.178) and Florida Institute of Technology (8:05.059).
"(Regatta officials) lumped the club teams in with NCAA teams, but for medals they separated them out," Prowse said. "We crossed the finish line third, ahead of University of Tampa (8:17.753), another NCAA crew, in fourth, as well as Washington (8:27.195), which was fifth overall and got the silver (for club teams) and Texas (8:40.783), which placed sixth and got the bronze."
Juniors Gideon Abbott and Kyle Meeker qualified in the men's Double.
Liberty's Men's Double tandem of juniors Gideon Abbott and Kyle Meeker placed third in Friday's preliminary heat in 6:55.559, with the top six advancing directly to the A final. The pair repeated that finish in Saturday's final to earn the bronze medal in 7:37.497, behind only William & Mary (7:22.702) and FIT (7:36.796), punching their ticket to ACRAs.
Liberty's Women's Varsity 8 placed fifth in the club team A final in 7:34.061, after placing third in the second semifinal in 7:41.930. Sophomore Cole Shatto also advanced to the A final and placed fifth in 9:04.273.
The Flames' Men's Novice 4 narrowly missed advancing to the A finals, finishing 13th in their semifinal in 6:42.84, just 2.7 seconds behind 12th-place William & Mary. That sent them to the seven-boat C final, which they won by 10 seconds in 8:13.271.
Liberty will send the same six boats to this Saturday's regular-season-ending Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Crew Championship at Sandy Run Regional Park in Fairfax Station, Va., on the Occoquan River, where the Flames and Lady Flames will row against 10 other club programs.
Next week, Prowse plans to form a Women's Varsity 4 lineup to join the Men's Double and Women's Novice 4 boats at the ACRA Championships.
"We will try to determine our fastest four rowers from our Varsity 8, put them in a time trial out of our boathouse at Smith Mountain Lake, and see if they will be competitive at nationals," Prowse said.
Before nationals, Liberty, which welcomed 10 new rowers this season to reach a combined men's and women's roster of 40, will graduate seven seniors at the May 8-10 Commencement.
