Rowing Issue | Freshman class small but mighty

After Penn’s sixth-place finish at least year’s Ivy Championships — the team’s best in the tournament’s four-year history — the women’s rowing program underwent a significant amount of restructuring, seeing former head coach Mike Lane head out in favor of current head coach Wesley Ng.

With that change in leadership came a need to replace a sizable portion of the Red and Blue rowers, as eight Quakers graduated in the Spring.

Upon first glance, eight losses out of a team over 40 strong may not come across as too significant. But considering the fact that four of those seniors rowed in the Varsity 8 at Ivies last year, there was a serious need for the Quakers to replenish their talent pool.

Then in came a class of 12 freshmen, the program’s smallest recruiting class in well over 10 years. While the current newcomers do not represent the recruiting work of Ng, he has not been afraid to apply their talents where necessary.

Freshman Christina Nordrum has held the Varsity 8 stroke seat in each of the Red and Blue’s meets this spring; the most recent case was at the Doc Hosea Invitational in Saratoga, N.Y., last weekend, where the Varsity 8 won both of its races en route to clinching the Orange Challenge Cup.

Typically, the stroke seat is reserved for one of the most technically sound rowers in the boat. Last year that honor was reserved for then-senior Veronica Jones, but with Jones out of the picture, Nordrum appears to have comfortably stepped into the prestigious role.

According to an article in the Redwood Bark, the paper of Nordrum’s high school, Penn was also the only school that Nordrum contacted during the recruiting process — a promising sign for the rejuvenated Red and Blue program.

Just as promising is the fact that the Corte Mardera, Calif., native is not the only first-year to have found a significant position in the team.

Tess LaPatra has been rowing in the second Varsity 8 at the six seat, and the boat has seen results as well, going 7-1 last weekend in Saratoga.

Additionally, on the Varsity 4 sit two more freshmen in Victoria Korine and Abigail Scheetz. The two first-years, hailing from opposite sides of the country, make up half of their boat.

On the men’s heavyweight side, a class of eight freshmen also represents one of the program’s smallest incoming classes in recent memory. But the makeup of hometowns speaks to familiarity, as all of the rowers come from the surrounding Mid-Atlantic region.

Three Pennsylvania natives and three Connecticut natives add to already large contingents from those two states, making the Keystone State and the Constitution State the best-represented on the team.

The addition of 14 freshmen to the men’s lightweight team is more typical of a Penn side, but only time will tell if the newly added Quakers can help the team improve on last year, in which it recorded its second-highest finish at the IRA National Championships.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.