Oct. 15, 2009

Live Webcast

Most weekends, the portion of the Charles River that flows between Boston and Cambridge is a calm, post-card scenic, stretch of water.

Not this weekend.

This is Head of the Charles time, a weekend when so many top rowing crews come to compete at the same time in the fall crew classic that the Weeks Footbridge across from Harvard University can be the site of more spectacular crashes than a NASCAR race.

This Saturday and Sunday the Charles River is home to the single biggest fall regatta in the world of rowing, a world class event renowned for it's cutthroat, get-the-heck-out-of-the-way-or-be-sunk-in-the-process, racing than anywhere else.

No, the banks of the River Charles will be anything but gentle over the next two days. Thousands of athletes from across the country and around the world will bring their rowing shells to Boston for a race down the winding course and through it's five narrow bridge passages for the right to call themselves champions.

And among them will be ten men and women from UMass Lowell who will be competing Saturday afternoon in the Collegiate Fours (Men 4:19 p.m.; women 4:35 p.m.) for just the second time in the rebuilding program.

Half of the crew will be going for the first time. But a few others already know what to expect and are well versed in the Charles River Mayhem, having raced last year.

Senior Alyssa Rastiello (Andover, MA) one of those in the boat last year when the overly aggressive opposition caught the River Hawks by surprise and pushed them off the marked course while passing though a bridge, costing the team 30 seconds in penalties.

"That was the scariest thing," Rastiello said. "We were right under one of the bridges, I think the second one, and we clashed oars with another boat. It was the loudest noise I ever heard and the next thing I knew we were outside the lines.

"It was scary, but it was so much fun and it was really exciting," she said. "This year we know how serious it is and we'll be much more prepared."

The goal for both boats is to be fast enough to earn automatic entries in next year's regatta and kick off the program's scheduled first NCAA fall season.

While the UMass Lowell men are a club team and will remain so, the women are expected to become a varsity program next year and compete in the NCAA Division II ranks.

River Hawks Head Coach Veronika Platzer is confident her boats will prevail.

If anyone can tell the athletes how to compete here, Platzer can. She has raced as a member of the U.S. National Team and a competitor in the Championship Singles event and has coached entries from two Division I women's programs through the three-mile course and through it's five torturous bridges and curves.

She knows that a missed turn or an unfocused moment can mean buoy penalties and time on the clock.

"You row in all the conditions on this course," Platzer said. "It twists and winds and turns and it exposes you to all the elements. It might be flat and calm in one area and then have head winds and cross winds and everything else in between.

"It's the ultimate skill and survival test for any rower. You have nature, bridges, and other rowers to deal with. It's a really challenging, three-mile course, and arguably the most difficult three-mile course in the United States."

And according to Platzer, her rowers are ready. The crew will be traveling to Boston today to practice the course, but the preparation has already been completed at home on the Merrimack.

"We could do it right now if we had too," she said. "Everything we have done in practice prepares us for this race. We have been using our own venue to prepare for the course.

"Last year was really was an awesome step in the right direction," she said. "But think of this. I arrived here two weeks before the race and we had to absolutely throw together boats. We did a really excellent job patching good crews together and we were good enough to get an automatic bid for the men.

"On the women's side, I didn't even have enough women to field the four and then a few women came out of the woodwork and it enabled us to put a boat together.

"Fast forward now twelve months where both of the boats for this weekend were selected from a really good level of competition and have already shown really good success this fall," Platzer added. "So this year we are coming in prepared."

Women's senior captain Katrina Walther (Barre, MA) was not in the boat last season but watched from the shore.

"I'm glad I wasn't in," she said. "I don't think I would have been ready. I wasn't expecting what I saw. It was a whole different world."

This year Walther will not only be in the boat but will be rowing from the stroke seat, setting the pace for the three other women behind her, including Rastiello, sophomore Ianna Hondros-McCarthy (Lowell, MA), first-year graduate student Kylie Speirs (Rockford, MI), and sophomore coxswain Kate Dufault (Worcester, MA).

"I'm really exited to have this opportunity to row with the best of the best," Walther said. "I'm ready for it now."