In Memoriam Navy Crew is sad to announce three former athletes and coaches have passed away recently: Paul Quinn, former rower and coach; Jim Dunbar, member of the gold-medal 1952 Olympic Crew; and Frank Montessano, member of the EARC-winning 1971 Varsity Men’s Eight. Paul Lewis Quinn, 93, of Titusville, Florida, passed away on June 4, 2018 at home. Paul was born in Longview, Washing-ton to Roswell and Lydia Quinn. He grad-uated from Kelso High School, Kelso, WA where he starred in football and basket-ball. Paul was awarded an appointment to the US Naval Academy where he gradu-ated in 1948 and continued in service to his country as a submariner. In 1955 Paul was hired by the legendary rowing coach Rusty Callow to be the plebe rowing coach at the Naval Academy. During 1955-1960 Paul produced two freshmen Intercolle-giate Rowing Association IRA) champi-ons. In 1960 Paul’s undefeated plebe crew entered the US Olympic Trials and made the final heat of four eights, having beaten the Eastern Sprint varsity champion in the semifinal heat. In 1961 Paul was appoint-ed Naval Academy varsity crew coach. He served in this position until 1967, and produced the national varsity IRA cham-pion in 1965, a year in which Navy also won the JV and Freshman championships. Paul continued his education with anStory cont’d on Page 2...

AVY CREW NEWSLETTERSpring/Summer www.navysports.com July 2018

In this Issue...• Knoll Makes U23 Nat’l Team• 150th Banquet Save the Date• Annual Reunion Dinner• Mike Pero Memorial Shell• Locker Naming Program• Spring Racing Recaps• Fall Reunion Weekends• Fall Racing Schedules

Annual Alumni Event a Success The 5th “Pull for Navy” Alumni Ban-quet reunited the Navy Crew family for a night of celebration once again last Febru-ary. The annual banquet, now a fixture on the Hubbard Hall calendar, has become a great tradition, offering alumni the chance to join the coaches and 1/C Midshipmen to experience—and re-live— the fellow-ship and close bonds they forged at Hub-bard Hall and out on the Severn. The evening serves two functions: first, to welcome and celebrate the soon to-commission Firsties on the eve of their fi-nal season and, secondly, to give alumni a chance to reunite and remember the way Navy Crew touched their lives and careers. By bringing the graduating class and the alumni together each year to commemo-rate the spirit embodied by the phrase “Pull for Navy,” the Banquet offers a chance to reinforce the sense of community that is Navy Crew as the next class gets ready to join the ranks of the alumni. Fittingly, the Firsties from the three teams were introduced early in the pro-gram by Coaches Friedrich, Bagnall, and Schlosberg. Each Firstie then received a wooden insignia box for their devices and decorations with either a Marine or Navy

emblem to signify their service selection. The Captain of each team also took a mo-ment to reflect on what the past four years of rowing had meant to them and their teammates. On hand this year to help hand out the boxes was a special guest: current CNO, Admiral John Richardson ‘82. ADM Rich-ardson handed each Firstie their box andStory cont’d on Page 7...

Knoll Makes U23 Nat’l TeamFrom Navysports.com - The United States Rowing Association recently announced its roster for the 2018 Under-23 National Team that will compete in a pair of inter-national competitions this month. Rising junior Andrew Knoll of the Navy heavy-weight team was selected as a member of the United States’ men’s four crew that will race at both the World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland from July 13 through 15 and the 2018 World Rowing Under-23 Championships in Poznan, Poland, July 25 through 29. Knoll will be rowing from the third seat in the four-man boat without a coxswain. Alexander Wallis from California-Berkeley Story cont’d on Page 8...

Guest Speaker Alden Mills ‘91

“Pull for Navy” 150th Anniversary BanquetSave the Date: February 23, 2019

Join us for a very special sesquicentennial event, celebrating

150 years of Navy Crew! In 1869, the Boat Club at the U.S. Naval Academy was formed

and later competed against Quaker City Rowing Club as USNA’s first outside sports competition. In that same year, USNA ad-opted class rings as a new tradition and purchased 43 acres of land across College Creek, the future site of Hubbard Hall.

Please join us for a very special weekend as we celebrate the history and tradition of Navy Crew. Team up, reunite and enjoy hearing from our special guests, spanning the last 70 years of Navy championship crews. So, break out those letter sweaters and rowing trou! Start spreading the word and bringing your classmates together for a great event. Make sure everyone is signed up for our mailing list, at gonavycrew.org, to get updates on all the banquet details.

In Memoriam Story cont’d...Electrical Engineering master’s degree from Catholic University in 1962, and be-came a professor at the Naval Academy. After 1967 Paul followed a calling to the ministry, graduating from Gordon Con-well Theological Seminary in 1973 and eventually taking up residence as the pas-tor of the First Baptist Church of Dover, New Hampshire. Paul eventually returned to academia and rowing coaching at Em-bry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he taught Electrical Engineering and start-ed a crew program that he coached well into his 80’s. Paul was a devoted husband to his wife, Carolyn (nee Bordner), who was very sup-portive of his endeavors. He had a curiosity and zest for life, always trying new things and helping others. He touched many lives through his years of teaching, coaching and the ministry, maintaining a positive outlook until the very end. He lived his faith fully.

Colonel James (Jim) Ralph Dunbar, Ret. USAF passed away peacefully in his home in the Woodlands, Texas on May 14th, 2018. Jim was born in Crawfordsville, IN on July 17, 1930. He grew up in Darlington, IN and after his first year at Purdue Uni-versity he was accepted into the US Naval Academy.

While at the Academy, he joined the Navy rowing team and was a member of the “Great Eight” that won the Gold Medal in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. The crew remained undefeated over three years and twenty-nine consecutive races, a feat unmatched by any other in the sport.After graduating, he was commissioned into the US Air Force. He further attend-ed, during his 28 year career, the Armed Forces Staff College, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and the Aerospace Research Pilot School. He was a member of the Society of Ex-perimental Test Pilots. Also a decorated fighter pilot during the Vietnam War where he flew his beloved F-105, Thunder-chief. During his test pilot career he flew many different aircraft. His favorites were the Century series aircraft (F100-F106). He earned many medals and awards including the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal w/10 OLC, and the Air Force Commenda-tion Medal. He was inurned in the Columbarium at the USNA on July 16, 2018 to rest on the shores near the Severn River to watch the Navy crews row by.

Frank “Rocco” Montesano passed away April 13, 2018, at the age of 68. Rocco was born on July 27, 1949 to Ann and Rocco Montesano in Passaic, New Jersey, but was

raised in Hackensack, New Jersey. Rocco graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1971, and served in the U.S. Navy from 1971-1998. At the Naval Acad-emy, he was a member of the Navy Crew, where he was three seat of the Varsity boat that won a gold medal at the Eastern Sprints Championships in 1971. Rocco was promoted to Captain and was awarded two Legion of Merit medals, two Meritorious Service Medals, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation medal, and five Sea Service ribbons. He also served during Operation Desert Storm and was Commanding Officer of A6 Squadron VA176 (Thunderbolts) where he won three consecutive “Battle E” awards as XO and CO. He accumulated over 5500 Flight hours and over 900 carrier landings. Rocco moved to Corpus Christi in July of 1994 as Commanding Officer of NASCC and was proud to call it home. He married his wife of 46 years on March 4, 1972. Rocco was the executive director of U.S.S. Lexington Museum on the Bay for 20 years. He was a loving husband and father, who enjoyed participating in the Corpus Christi Mustangs, Corpus Christi Housing Authority, and Corpus Christi Rotary. He will always be remembered for his fantastic sense of humor, service to his country and community, love of sports, and exceptional devotion to his family.

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Navy Lightweight 4-Wins IRA Championship With an outstanding winter train-ing evolution under their belts, and the N150 indoor erg 2k record being broken (1/C Sam Haber, ’18), the Naval Academy Lightweight Men were committed to put-ting their hard work to the water to take the most meaningful strokes of the year. Tested by a combination of sun, cold, and snow flurries in Tennessee, the Lights were once again blessed by the host families in the greater Oak Ridge area with hot meals, warm beds, and daily encouragement. Kicking off the season with scrimmaging the UVA Heavyweight squad in Charlot-tesville, the new line-ups for the spring racing season began to gel and take shape. Hosting one of the deepest and strongest Princeton Tiger teams in recent history, the Navy Lights raced a tremendous morning of matches in the Murtaugh Cup. Motivat-ed and looking for revenge from 2017, the Princeton 1V just outstretched the Navy 1V on the seawall by 2.3 seconds. From there, the results stayed tight as the Mids were able to take 2 of 5 from Princeton, and no margin was over a boat length in all 5 boat classes. Garnering confidence, and gaining some athletes back to full-strength, the team headed to Mercer Lake to battle Yale in the Eads Johnson Cup. Once again, tight margins and tremendous racing marked the day, as Navy took 2 of 4 races

from Yale, and the 1V race came down to a scant 2.8 seconds, where Yale was able to hold off a hard-charging Navy Varsity 8+. Keeping the show on the road, the Lights headed to New York to face a revamped and strong Columbia team. Early sea-son results had begun to show the EARC League as tight as ever, and once again the N150’s went 2-2 on the day. The results against Columbia proved to be some of the smallest margins that any team in the league had pressed the Lions to, and the lessons learned would be applied to the fol-lowing weekend against Georgetown. A motivated and hungry Hoya squad ventured to the Severn in mid-April, and

Navy was ready for a strong push from their team. Once the final flag had dropped, the Navy Lightweights had completed another clean sweep of Georgetown, making the outgoing 1/C undefeated against the Hoyas in their 4-years at Navy, and all 6 Varsity Lightweight Eights victorious on the day. Two tough tests remained to round out the regular season, Harvard and Penn. The Lightweights were fortunate enough to have the Adams Cup racing on the Heavyweight side slated for the same weekend in Annapolis, and the N150’s made the most of the multiple races that blasted down the seawall. The 1st Varsity Story cont’d on Page 9...

Navy Lightweight 4- with Coach Sands after winning IRA Championship

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Navy Women’s Crew Patriot League Champions The 2018 women’s team continued to build more speed year-to-year while con-tinuing to excel in the classroom and the Brigade. The team had two members of the Patriot League Academic team including the Patriot League Rowing Scholar Athlete of the Year. The team also had a fair share of company commanders and leaders in the hall as well as the Brigade Commander for the Spring semester. Once again, the women’s team looked to raise the bar with another challenging spring race schedule. The team came out of a very successful winter training and again traveled to High Point, NC for their spring training trip. They battled the con-ditions of snow, cold-rain and hard winds but managed to get in some good training. The finale for the tough training was an-other sweep of all races against the women from Army. The regular season of racing began with a new race – the Cooper Sprints. The Mids came out strong in the heats putting all five of their boats into the grand finals. Once there, the women secured first place fin-ishes in the Varsity 8, the 2nd 8 and the 2nd four. The 3rd 8 finished second while the Varsity 4 finished third. The Women took the overall title for the race and it was a great way to kick off the season. The next weekend, Navy entered an ex-panded 12 team field in the Doc Hosea In-

vitational that included Indiana, Syracuse, Northeastern, Penn, Dartmouth, Cornell, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Boston U, Rut-gers and UMass. The team struggled in the heats, looking flat & sluggish off the line. As a result, the team was unable to get any boat into the grand finals. In the finals, the Mids regrouped for some solid showings but the deficit of having no boat in the grands was too much and Navy only garnered a disappointing 8th place finish as a team. Navy’s next challenge was against a field of national powers, including 8 teams ranked in the top 20, at the 2018 Clemson Invitational where they planned to have three races over a two-day event. When impending weather changed the sched-ule, the Mids had to get off of an 11 hour

bus ride and prep themselves to race that first afternoon. Each boat had great mo-ments throughout the event where the team started to see the improvement of speed and how much better they were from years past. The boat that stood out the most was the Varsity 8, which finished third in the Friday afternoon race – only 6 seconds off of heat winner Virginia. That same boat came back less than 12 hours later and placed fourth just behind Ohio State, Washington State and Duke. There was still a lot to learn and adjust, but the team was moving in the right direction. Without a chance to breathe, the team traveled up the following weekend to take on #11 Brown and Cornell in Ithaca, NY. The team made great adjustments in a Story cont’d on Page 9...

Navy Women with the Patriot League Trophy in Camden, NJ

Navy Hwts: Young Team Finding Its Momentum Navy Heavyweights had a great year of race experience, racing side-by-side with the best crews in the country, which should lead to much improved results in the years to come. With only one 1/C (senior) row-er in the top two varsity eights at the IRA Championships, Navy’s young group is de-termined to bring the program back to a top-ten national ranking. At the IRA Championships, Navy’s Var-sity placed 15th overall, one spot better than the previous year and had a very tight race against Penn in the final on Sunday. “We had a solid race against Penn in very tough conditions, but the athletes were dis-appointed we couldn’t push through them at the end of the competition,” explained Head Coach Rob Friedrich. “Unfortunate-ly, the weather got worse and they canceled the remaining finals. So, our other boats did not get a chance to race. Our second and third varsity boats were primed to have great races and go out on a winning note.” Coach Friedrich went on to explain how the pieces are starting to come together and the program is poised to make a huge jump next year. One of the reasons is a very deep and strong rising senior class. New team captain Owen Firebaugh will be lead-ing a very motivated class, who will push the younger athletes from the front. Part

of that youth and talent was on display in the 5th varsity race against Harvard on the Severn River in late April. In typical fashion, Navy tries to boat as many crews as possible during their home races, so it was great to see three Navy boats lining up against Harvard’s 5V. At the start of the race, Navy’s 5V took a commanding lead, while Navy’s 6V dueled with Harvard’s 5V for the first 1000 meters. Approaching the halfway mark, Navy’s 6V passed Harvard and started to push away from the Crim-son. The excitement did not end there. As the crews raced under the Naval Academy Bridge and onto the seawall for the last 500 meters, Navy’s 7V also start to walk on Harvard. With 300 meters to go, Navy’s

7V pulled even with the Crimson and then nudged their bow in front. With a spirited sprint, Navy’s 7V pushed ahead for a 2-sec-ond margin, completing Navy’s three boat sweep of the Harvard 5V. “It’s races like the Adams Cup that mo-tivate our entire program every year,” re-marked Coach Friedrich. “We will contin-ue to develop walk-ons in our lower boats and they will become the backbone of our program on the varsity for future years.” Many of the younger athletes in the top boats also made their marks on the pro-gram this year. Youngster (sophomore) Andrew Knoll broke the 2k ergometer re-cord (5:55.3) and won the World Indoor

Story cont’d on Page 8...

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Navy Heavyweight 5th Varsity won a bronze medal at the Eastern Sprints

Heavyweights: Mike Pero ‘63 Shell Dedication On Saturday, April 21, 2018, Navy Crew was honored to help dedicate a new shell in memory of Michael Andrew Pero, Jr. Mike was a strong, kind person who was extremely proud of his country and main-tained his fighting spirit until the very end. At the Naval Academy, Mike was a mem-ber of the famed Class of 1963. In 1960, after an undefeated season, winning the EARC Sprints and IRA Championships, they competed in the 1960 Olympic Tri-als….as PLEBES! The Class of 1963 went on to make the grand final of the Olympic Trials and place fourth behind the Navy Varsity, California and Syracuse. If you talk to them today, they are still disappointed with that one blemish on their plebe re-cord. The Class of 1963 became the foundation of one of the greatest eras in Navy Crew history, with two Ten Eyck team points tro-phies during their tenure and many medals from the EARC and IRA Championships. Later in life, Mike still had a passion for rowing, joining his classmates to form the Navy Masters Rowing Club and compete in various regattas around the world. The

Class of 1963 has always been one of our most supportive alumni groups. Their ded-ication led to the creation of our current Navy Crew Excellence Fund, supporting all three of our rowing teams in the Navy Boathouse. When Mike and Leslie moved back to Annapolis, one of his first visit was to the boathouse to see how he could help the program. When he heard about our dreams to create an annual Navy Crew Alumni Banquet, he made it his mission to help make it a reality. That next spring,

Mike was the guest of honor at our first annual “Pull for Navy” Banquet and it has been going strong ever since. It was an honor to dedicate a new Navy Rowing Shell in Mike Pero’s memory and Navy Crew thanks the Pero family and friends who, along with Mike’s classmates, made the generous donations to make this possible. Mike’s legacy will never be forgotten and now, with this boat, his spirit will be racing down the Severn River once again.

Navy Crew Commemorative Locker Program The Hubbard Hall commemorative locker program is off to a great start, with 29 lockers already purchased ($72,500) and several more pending, according to Rusty Yeiser ‘74 from the USNA Founda-tion. Dirk Mosis ‘73, had the honor of pur-chasing the first locker (pictured on the right) and his locker plate is now installed in the men’s locker room on locker #73 for his class year. Heavyweight Rower Andrew Knoll ‘20 was the proud athlete housed in the Dirk Mosis Locker for the 2016-17 sea-son. Given the rich history of Navy Crew that Hubbard Hall represents, it is fit-ting to provide an opportunity for former Navy rowers and other alumni, family, and friends of Navy Crew to both honor past glory and provide for the success of future midshipman crews. The Navy Crew Excel-lence Fund provides critical private sup-port for capital and supplemental program support for all three Navy crew programs: heavyweights, lightweights, and women. With a $2,500 charitable contribution, you

may customize a tribute to the people, history, and tra-ditions that will continue to inspire midshipmen who pull an oar for Navy. Your personalized plate will be affixed to the front of a locker in the men’s or women’s locker room on the second deck of the boat-house where it will remind future Navy rowers of the legacy of excellence they have inherited. Your gift will also afford you recogni-tion in the Naval Academy Foundation’s donor recogni-tion society, the President’s Circle. For additional informa-tion on the Navy Crew Commemorative Locker program, see the on-line Locker Program Brochure, or contact: Rusty Yeiser ’74

U.S. Naval Academy Foundation 410.295.4174 / rusty.yeiser@usna.com

Alumni Banquet cont’d...a CNO Challenge coin. Getting to shake hands with the “big boss” of the Navy gave special resonance to the symbolism of these MIDN taking the next step in their career, and bringing all that they have learned at Hubbard Hall out into the Fleet and the Marine Corps. The CNO also took a few minutes to share with the group a poster that he has been using as he speaks to various com-mands throughout “Big Navy.” Featuring a close-up of an eight of Mids in mid-race, the poster frames a quote from Boys in the Boat about teamwork and “swing” that ADM Richardson has made a touchstone of the message he delivers when he speaks out in the Fleet. Guest speaker Alden Mills’ 91 followed

the CNO and spoke about how Navy Crew shaped and formed his time in the Fleet with the Special Warfare community and his successful entrepreneurial career. Mills entertained the gathering with a few funny anecdotes from his own Plebe Summer and from his time at BUD/S, but his constant theme was that Navy Crew had given him the mental toughness to endure and thrive even when days were not “sunny” and yet challenges had to be met. The program ended with Coach Fried-rich making the announcement that next year’s “Pull for Navy” Banquet will mark the 150th anniversary of Navy Crew. In the planning stages now, the 2019 Banquet will take place in Dahlgren Hall and commem-orate the sesquicentennial of Crew at the Naval Academy by bringing together the

largest gathering of alumni to date as well as representatives of the greatest crews in Navy history. The goal of this special night will be to recognize the efforts and accom-plishments of everyone who has raced in a Navy Crew over these past 150 years, and particularly the championship crews of the lar 70 years. The 150th Anniversary Banquet is set for 23 February 2019, so mark your calen-dar and start contacting your classmates to fill a table for a wonderful night of celebrat-ing the bonds you built at Hubbard and the remarkable history of Navy Crew. The 2019 Banquet will honor the past, present, and future of Navy Crew in a unique way and promises to be a special evening of remem-bering what it means to “Pull for Navy.”

Happy Birthday Coach Ullrich Coach Carl Ullrich turned 90 this year and, to celebrate the man and all he meant to the men he coached on the Severn, Dave Kucik ‘73 undertook an am-bitious project: reaching out to the alums of Coach Ullrich’s era and seeing if he could fill a book with 90 letters of appreciation for all that Coach had done for them. In true Navy Crew fashion, the call was answered overwhelmingly, filling a binder with letters and notes for “Coach Carl” from the Classes of 1968-1976. Kucik, along with Frank Culbertson ‘71 and a few other alums, presented the binder to Carl and Becky at Coach’s birthday party in Virginia Beach in June.

Andrew Knoll Story cont’d... will sit in the stroke seat, while Wallis’ col-lege teammate Hunter Hodges will row in the two-hole. Washington’s Eli Maesner will compete from the bow. Carlos Dinares is the head coach in charge of the men’s four crew. Knoll is the first Midshipmen from the heavyweight team to compete in interna-tional competition for the United States since Tim Tracey ‘16 and Julian Hagberg ‘16 represented the U.S. at the 2015 World U-23 Rowing Championships. As a warm-up for the U23 Champion-ship, the rising junior raced in Lucerne, Switzerland at the World Rowing Cup III on the second weekend of July. At the World Cup, Knoll’s 4- was pitted against se-nior national team competition , who were gearing up for the Senior World Champi-onships later this summer. The 4- event is

regarded as the most competitive men’s sweep event in the world and Knoll’s 4- lined up against many of the World’s top international competitors. In Lucerne, Knoll’s four qualified for the A/B semi-finals by winning their repechage against the Czech Republic, Russia, China, Australia and Spain. In their semi-final, the US boat narrowly missed qualifying for the A Final, placing fourth in a great race to the Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany. In the B Final, Knoll’s four placed second for 8th place overall in the event. As the only Under-23 boat to make the top 12 in this regatta, expectations are high for their chances at the U23 World Championships later in July. The U.S. will have 22 crews competing at the U-23 Championships, a five-day event. Events include the men’s and women’s sin-gle sculls, lightweight single sculls, double

sculls, lightweight double sculls, quadruple sculls, lightweight quadruple sculls, pair, lightweight pair, four, four with coxswain, and eight. The 72-person roster for the 2018 U.S. team includes athletes from 20 states, plus the District of Columbia. 28 colleges and universities are represented on the roster. The U.S. won five medals at the 2017 World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The women’s eight and lightweight men’s four won silver medals, while the women’s single sculls, women’s pair, and men’s four with coxswain won bronze medals. Austin Treubert ‘18 of the Navy lightweight crew team was a member of the silver medal-winning men’s light-weight four boat at the 2017 championship event.

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Heavyweight Recap cont’d...Rowing Championships in March. Along with a gold medal at that erg race in Vir-ginia, his result earned him an invite to the US National Team Camp for the sum-mer. But Andrew is only one of a very deep sophomore class at Navy. His roommate, John Lamb, also broke 6:00 on the erg this year and just missed out on a National Team invite. “We finally have another group of ath-letes here that can compete on the national team level,” Coach Friedrich said. “We have all the pieces we need to make huge im-provements next year. Now, we just need to train hard and fit all those pieces together.” The Navy Heavyweight Team has been blessed to have such supportive alumni.

After the great leadership of Steve Lisze-wski ‘90 and Jon Aytes ‘90 here on the Yard, a new group of alumni have been around campus to help out with the team. Matt Fluhr ‘12 has been the team O-rep and coaching in the mornings with the team. He will soon be relieved by LT Chris Gear ‘12, who is coming to the yard for his shore tour in August. Rob Niewoehner ‘81 has been our faculty representative over the past few years and also comes down to coach the team once a week. Another group of younger alumni joined the team for the annual Currahee Run (3 miles up, 3 miles down), in Taccoa, GA on the way to spring break training. At the top of the mountain, the alumni had a chance to talk to the Brotherhood about their ex-

perience on the team and how it has helped them in the Fleet. Inspiring Stuff! In keeping with their academic tradi-tion, Navy’s Heavyweights placed 15 ath-letes on the IRA All-Academic Team. The graduating officers led the way: Ben Dun-phy, Jack Gainer, Charles Linder, Parker Novakovic, Caleb Robertson, Zach Scholz, Nick Street and Eli Wood; along with ris-ing seniors Matt Bute, Aaron Hanko, Mike Palaski, and Dwayne Williams; and rising juniors Kathryn Fung, Jake Klosowski, and Matt Gregory. Congratulations to all of Navy’s student-athletes, who are leading the way as officers in the Navy and Marine Corps. The coach-ing staff is excited to see what this young group can do next season.

Women’s Recap cont’d...short week and raced better and with more energy. The Mids fought hard as a team against Cornell, beating them in the 1st 8, 2nd 8 and 4. The margins that those boats put up against a strong Brown team also showed that Navy did have some develop-ing speed, matching programs like Notre Dame and Gonzaga. To close the regular season, the Wom-en’s team traveled up to Philadelphia for two duel races. The Mids swept all 8 races they lined up in against Delaware and St. Joseph’s and set the stage for a great post-season. Coming right off of final exams, the Navy Women headed back up to the Cooper River to race for the Patriot League Cham-pionship. With a stronger, deeper field, the team took care of business in the morning heats – placing all three boats in the grand finals. The four started off the finals and took open-water control of the race early on. However, with about 250 meters to go, the boat started to pick it up to sprint and caught a boat-stopping crab. The hull was left perpendicular to the course and the

pressure of the crab popped an oar out of the oarlock. They managed to straighten themselves out and somehow managed to come in 5th, earning valuable points. The first and 2nd 8s, on the other hand, had to work a bit to take control of their races, but once they did, they never relented and finished first. Neither of those boats knew what happened to the four and in spite of the win by the 2nd 8, four teams were in position to win the overall championship if they were to win the Varsity 8’s race. For-tunately, Navy won the first 8 and won its fourth-straight Patriot League Champion-ship, and sixth in program history. Navy once again secured the conference’s auto-matic bid to the NCAA Championship. As the Women headed down to Saraso-ta, FL for the 2018 NCAA Championship, weather looked like it would play a factor in racing, as a tropical storm headed to-wards the gulf coast. The Championship committee decided to change the racing to go from 4 races in 3 days to 4 races in about 30.5 hours. Fortunately, the Mids were trained for this short turnaround. The team went into the racing trying to place all

three boats into the C Finals. The team just missed the mark with both the 2nd 8 and 4 qualifying for the C Final, while the first 8 got overtaken from a qualifying position in the last 10 strokes of the race. Navy was still in position for a program best finish but needed all three boats to break previ-ous team records. The first 8 started off the finals and lead virtually wire-to-wire to secure a first place finish in the D Fi-nal (19th overall…and a program record.) The second 8 fought back and forth with Northeastern but was spent from the semi-finals and finished 6th in the C Final (18th overall…and a program record.) The four then lined up and finished the 2017-18 season with a bang, putting themselves ahead of the likes of Wisconsin, Syracuse and Southern California and pushing C Final winner Princeton all the way down the course. The four finished second in the C Final and 14th overall…another program record. With those efforts, the team finished a program best 17th at the NCAA Championship and finished the year ranked 18th in the final national poll.

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Lightweight Recap cont’d...just missed on the upset of the #1 ranked Crimson, falling by 1.2 seconds. It was an awesome effort, and one that the rest of the Lightweight Fleet built on the rest of the day. While sweeping Delaware that morning, the Lightweights just missed on securing the 1st Annual Col. Michael Pau-lovich Points Trophy, honoring the former Harvard Lightweight and US Marine who has been an extraordinary supporter of the Navy Lights since his time as an O-Rep, women’s novice coach, and humanities in-structor on The Yard. Closing out the regular season, the Lights headed to the City of Brotherly Love to face a strong Penn team. Coming off a 2nd place finish at the IRA Regatta the year before, Penn had once again began to gain steam toward the end of the season. Han-dling the always challenging turn on the Schuylkill River, the N150’s charged to a Callow Cup victory in the 1V, and the 1918 Points Trophy title for taking 4 of 5 races, falling just 1.5 seconds away from a clean sweep of Penn. All of the regular season racing had led to a mature and race-ready team heading into the 2018 EARC Sprints. The athletes were

excited to be done with their final exams, and ready to put their stamp on the course at Worcester as the deepest, strongest lightweight team in the nation. Marked by tremendous racing, the Lightweight Men from Navy put all 6 boats in the Grand Fi-nals, concluding the Eastern Sprints with four of their boats earning medals (1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze), and finishing 3rd over-all in the Jope Cup Team Points title. This marked the best finish since 2008 in the Jope Cup, and the best finish for the Navy 1st Varsity 8+ since 2010. The 2018 season concluded on an ex-tremely strong note with the N150 IRA squad heading to Mercer Lake to represent the entire Navy Lightweight Team at the National Championship. Matching their seeded rank, the 1st Varsity 8+ finished a tight 5th place, just missing 4th in the country by 2.3 seconds and a bronze medal by just over a boat length, the best IRA fin-ish by the Navy Light 1V8 since 2010. Ad-ditionally, and in expected standards for the N150’s, both the Varsity 4+ and Var-sity 4- made their Grand Finals. Upset by whitecap conditions at Mercer, the finals for the Lightweight 4’s racing was moved to Carnegie Lake, in what was dubbed the

“Rogue IRA Regatta”. With Ron Chen from US Rowing officiating, the Lightweight league coaches ran both Grand Finals, with the Coach Sands led Varsity 4- earning the IRA 4- Championship title, and the Varsity 4+ just missing a bronze medal by 0.1 sec-ond. Excited to build on the momentum of the 2018 season in 2019, but grateful for the hard work of entire coaching staff and team, Coach Bagnall summed up the year as follows: “The entire N150 team and coaching staff can’t thank our parents, supporters, and alumni for making this an outstand-ing season,” commented Bagnall. “We are grateful for the positive legacy that our out-going Marine and Navy Officers are leav-ing. Their legacy to the Navy Lightweight program will be remembered as dedication to their teammates every day, leaving the team in a better place than when they ar-rived here on The Yard four years ago. I have no doubt the US Fleet will come to the same conclusion after their time in service to their country.”

Navy Crew Alumni WeekendsWe invite all of our alumni back to Hubbard Hall for their reunion weekends this fall. Please join us for a reunion row and coffee/bagels at the boathouse on Saturday morning before the Navy Football Game. Family and friends are welcome to ride in the coaches’ launch for the creek row. If you would like to organize your class gathering for the event, please e-mail Coach Rob Friedrich at friedric@usna.edu

Here are the dates and times of the reunion rows and open houses:

September 1 (10AM): Class of 1973September 8 (10AM): Classes of 1988, 2003, 2013

September 15 (10AM): Classes of 1978, 1993, 1998October 20 (10AM): Classes of 1958, 1968, 1983, 2008

We hope to see you at Hubbard Hall on your Class Reunion Weekend!

Navy Crew Fall Racing SchedulesHeavyweight Schedule

October 13 Navy Day Regatta Philadelphia, PAOctober 20-21 Head of the Charles Boston, MAOctober 27 Head of the Schuylkill Philadelphia, PANovember 10 Rutgers Fall Classic (Plebes Only) New Brunswick, NJ

Women’s ScheduleOctober 13 Navy Day Regatta Philadelphia, PAOctober 20 Washington College Scrimmage Annapolis, MDNovember 10 Rutgers Fall Classic New Brunswick, NJ

Lightweight ScheduleOctober 13 Navy Day Regatta Philadelphia, PAOctober 20-21 Head of the Charles Boston, MAOctober 28 Princeton Chase Princeton, NJNovember 10 Rutgers Fall Classic (Plebes Only) New Brunswick, NJ