Both the men’s and women’s rowing teams had successful weekends in Saratoga Springs, New York last Sunday at the Head of the Fish. Women’s rowing seized the gold medal in the Collegiate Four competition, while the men’s team cleaned house and took first place in every event in which they participated. Led by senior co-captains Andrew Hatzenbuhler and Bryan Pape, the Raiders exhibited impressive endurance and discipline in their decisive victories at Saratoga Springs.

The ladies’ A-boat brought the gold home to Colgate, beating the second-place team by a margin of 16 seconds. Consider that remarkable feat while realizing that the margin of time between rowing teams is often only fractions of a second. Sophomore coxswain Allison Patchen, senior Caitlyn Perlman, sophomore Vicky Hulit, senior Yasmin Rozwadowski and sophomore Lauren Schmetterling rowed in that boat. The Raiders’ C-boat came close to medaling in the same race, finishing in fourth place. Junior Meanne Dingmann, senior Ande Reisman, senior Cassie Rotman, sophomore Laura Crawford and sophomore Meredith Buerger made up the C-boat. The ladies will head to Syracuse on Saturday to compete in the Syracuse Invitational.

Men’s rowing had every right to be proud on Sunday after defeating all of the opponents it faced on the water.

“We try to make it a goal to win everything,” said Pape. “When we’re racing we expect our top entry to take the win.”

Hatzenbhuler and Pape were two of the members of the A-boat, and they were joined by senior coxswain Mary Dekar, senior Peter Engebretson, sophomore Mark Robson, senior Doug Herling, senior Isaac Goodling, sophomore Marc Cassone and sophomore Austin Sigety. Not only did Colgate’s A-boat win each and every one of its events, but the Raiders B-boat also took second in the Men’s Collegiate Four, defeating Williams College A-boat.

Sophomore Mark Robson also won the single event with a tremendous effort.

“He [Robson] practiced the single maybe one or two times this semester, and impressed everyone [at Saratoga],” said Hatzenbuhler. “It’s not something he’s been training for, but he just sort of jumped in and did it.”

At the end of the day, the Raiders won gold medals in the Men’s Collegiate Eight, the Men’s Collegiate Four, the Men’s Collegiate Two, and the Single in addition to the silver medal in the Men’s Collegiate Four.

“We expect ourselves to win, and our coach (Khaled Sanad) expects us to win,” said Pape. “We work too hard to be happy with anything but gold.”

“If you’re not first you’re a loser,” Hatzenbuhler added.

The members of Colgate Men’s rowing are anything but losers. Their victories seem even more incredible in light of the fact that many of the rowers doubled up on events and had little more than 15 minutes between races. As evident from the team’s performance, the Raiders’ roster is filled with guys teammates can count on.

“You can’t afford to have one person have a bad day,” Hatzenbuhler said.

“You need to count on each other,” Pape said. “One guy can’t make an eight fast, but he can make it slow.”

Next week, the Raiders will head to Syracuse to compete in the Syracuse Challenge. “We’re pretty confident [about next week],” Hatzenbuhler said. “The nice thing about this season is that we have gradually harder races built in later in the season. Syracuse and Cornell are the teams we want to go up against.”