Although the times of warm weather are coming to a close here in Hamilton, the Colgate rowing teams are just beginning their seasons.

On Saturday, October 20th, both the men and the women’s teams headed to Cambridge, M.A. to compete in the Head of the Charles Regatta, their debuts of the season.

The women’s team was primed to improve upon their showing at last year’s Head of the Charles, in which they placed 39 out of 54 teams at 20:44.300. A great challenge for the Raiders in this year’s iteration of the regatta was their unfamiliarity with the big stage: none of the women who rowed in the 2017 women’s varsity 4+ did competed in this year’s regatta. However, this year’s team had one returning athlete in perhaps the most important individual position of the boat: coxswain Logan Sundberg.

Sundberg had an enormous task at hand: find a way to outpace the competition while exhibiting significant improvement on her boat’s performance form last year. On Saturday morning, the women’s varsity 4+ faced programs including Miami (Ohio), Wesleyan, Lehigh, and Georgia Tech. The Raiders had Sundberg at the cox, and a fresh, new crew featuring freshman Rose Corcoran (4), fresh- man Alex Hopkins (3), senior Abby Fleming (2), and senior Michelle Tebolt (1).

Sundberg and the four rowers pulled off an incredible feat. By race’s end, the came in 31st out of 54 boats with a time of 20:24.819, an amazing 20 second better than the team’s performance last year at this event. The dynamic polar combination of two freshmen and two seniors proved to be a successful one. The Marist Red Foxes’ achieved first place in the competition with a 18:44.285 winning time.

The women’s rowing team will head to the Head of the Fish Regatta in Saratoga, N.Y., on Saturday, October 27, with the men’s team, where they will work to improve upon the weekends performances. The women’s head coach, Brittany Adell commented on the prestige of the competition.

“The Head of the Charles is a prestigious race and we are honored to be a part of the event. It gave us an opportunity to test our speed against other well-respected crews,” Adell said.

The men’s team also faced a daunting task in this race, going up against some heavy-hitting Ivy League and European national teams. There were also immensely challenging natural obstacles to overcome, as the temperature, wind and waves factored into the mens’ performance in Boston.

The eight-man squad finished 31st in the elite-echelon men’s champion- ship eights division with a time of 16:44.744. This was an immense improvement on the eight’s last race (Bridge to Bridge Regatta), almost two whole minutes faster. Senior Matt Oakley commented on the optimism that this race provided.

“Racing the Championship 8+ category was a good introduction to the level of rowing we want our team to reach. Racing against some of the top oarsmen in the world was extremely motivating and will push us to work harder for the remaining races in the fall and into the spring season,” Oakley said.