Of the 27 members of Liberty's rowing team that traveled to Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Ga., 23 earned medals for top-three showings at Saturday's John Ferriss Shamrock Sprints.
Rowers gaining physical and mental strength through training in spring semester
3/26/2026 10:51:00 AM | Rowing
Share:
After a week of rowing on Lake Lanier in Georgia over spring break, Liberty placed all five of its boats in the top three at the John Ferriss Shamrock Sprints.
Members of Liberty University's men's and women's rowing teams set some fast times and earned some high placings at Saturday's spring season-opening John Ferriss Shamrock Sprints Regatta staged on Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Ga., after spending their spring break doing two-a-day training sessions on the same body of water.
"We have stayed in Hilton Head, S.C., and at Smith Mountain Lake a few times, but this was our first time spending spring break training in Gainesville," Head Coach Debbie Prowse said. "We had an awesome week, from Saturday through Saturday, with some really great training on Lake Lanier."
The rowers also experienced team-building and fellowship activities to build up their team culture, including a trip to Top Golf and time spent playing beach volleyball as well as plenty of devotionals and a worship night led by team members.
Prowse said the training sessions on the lake gave the coxswains plenty of time to learn how to steer their boats between the buoys on turns, and for the women's double and women's pair to learn how to steer themselves in a straight line.
Liberty's Women's Varsity 4, featuring junior Mary May Bailey in the stroke seat, senior Rebecca Couric in the 3 seat, Liza Purdue in the 2 seat, Grace Cornell in the bow, and Anna Benjamin at coxswain, captured a gold medal by winning its flight with the fastest time overall of 8 minutes, 25.3 seconds in the 2,000-meter race. That was more than 17 seconds faster than Ithaca (N.Y.) College (second in 8:42.7) and even farther in front of Illinois (third, 9:10.1), Albany (N.Y.), Auburn (Ala.), and six other boats.
The Flames' Men's Varsity 4 team of senior rowers Gideon Abbott, Nick Belzer, and Matt Giordano, and freshman Aiden Lovelace, and senior coxswain Kyle Meeker finished first in its flight in 8:15.98. That placed it second overall behind Tulane A (8:00.85) and ahead of boats from Illinois, Auburn, Tulane B and C, Berry (Ga.) College, UNC Wilmington, High Point (N.C.), and South Carolina to give them a silver medal.
"They had a good race for their first spring race, and stayed close to them the whole race, but couldn't close the gap," Prowse said.
Â
Liberty seniors Allie Reed and Alayna Degan finished first in the women's pair race on Saturday in the John Ferriss Shamrock Sprints.
Liberty seniors Allie Reed in the stroke seat and Alayna Degan in the bow finished first overall in the women's pair race in 9:14.2, nearly a minute in front of Ithaca and a minute and a half ahead of two boats from Tulane (La.) University.
The Lady Flames' women's double boat rowed by juniors Elise Marsalis and Caitlin Kinsella finished third out of six boats in their flight in 9:58.35, behind only tandems from Tulane (9:32.5) and Illinois (9:39.4).
"It was a great opportunity to have an early spring race, which was more like a scrimmage than an official race," Prowse said. "It was low key, and on the smaller side, but there was great competition. All in all, it was a good experience for everybody."
The Flames and Lady Flames will travel to Midlothian, Va., a suburb of Richmond, to compete in the Commonwealth Sprints hosted by VCU on the James River this Saturday. Liberty will skip the Clemson (S.C.) Sprints over Easter Weekend to focus on preparing for the April 18-19 Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association (SIRA) Championships on Lake Melton in Oak Ridge, Tenn. That's the same site as the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) Championships from May 15-17.
Prowse has set the standard that only teams placing in the top three at the SIRA regatta will travel to compete in the ACRA races.
Liberty will enter one regatta between the SIRA and ACRA championships, the April 26 Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Crew Championships in Occoquan, Va., which will serve as a tuneup for those boats qualifying for the biggest event of the season.
"We will have three weeks of solid training before SIRAs, which will be nice," Prowse said. "While races are great, the do sort of disrupt the flow of training because all the (travel). I definitely feel like we have a lot of potential, and should be able to qualify some if not all five of the boats for ACRAs."
She is working to bring out the strengths of this year's team through not only physical training in the water and the weight room, but also mental training with a team at Liberty that specializes in sports psychology.
"That has really set the groundwork for developing strong mental toughness," Prowse said. "We're really trying to dig deep and learn things that motivate us. Where do our thoughts go when we're tired in the middle of the race and when things get hard? Some of the team members are really embracing it and have learned from these workshops on how to train your brain to keep pushing and think positive thoughts and to really get the most out of your body during a race, and I am excited to see how that will play out in our racing."
She said the workouts have been more productive with the positive mindset, as the Flames and Lady Flames have shifted from endurance training for 5,000-meter races in the fall semester to sprint training in the spring.
"Every day is a new day and an opportunity to get stronger and faster," Prowse said. "It is important that everyone in your boat has that same expectation, the same thoughts, the same discipline to focus in and do their best."
