LAKE QUINSIGAMOND, Massachuetts – The Marist women's rowing program began its quest to defend the 2021 MAAC Championship and trip to the NCAAs by traveling to Massachusetts this weekend to compete at the Quinsigamond Snake Regatta, hosted by WPI. Marist entered three Collegiate 8s.
 
The goals for the weekend were to shake off the rust from not having raced in a fall long course event since 2019, to have all three crews come off the water feeling good about how they performed and to have our A and B boats finish in the top 5. These goals were accomplished and the team is excited and confident going into the remainder of our fall season, which will see a portion of the team competing at the Head of the Charles next weekend, the entire team competing at the Head of the Fish in Saratoga on Halloween Weekend and the whole team racing a 2k at Overpeck Park, NJ on November 14th.
 
Being that it is so early in the season and the fact our program's goal is to be fast in mid-May, we raced in two even lineups along with a third boat. There were A, B and C boats from other teams such as WPI, Clark, Holy Cross, Middlebury, UVM amongst others.
 
During the week leading into the race the lineups of the crews had been toyed with depending on results from various workouts and the athletes handled all of this very well as they have become accustomed to varied mixed lineups during the fall season.
 
The "A" lineup consisted of coxswain Katie Moody, Summer Starrett, Elizabeth Kelly, Natalia Miklos, Emma Jauch, Mary Schone, Juliet Kirk, Lauren Muhr, and Genevieve Anderson.
 
The "B" lineup consisted of coxswain Abigail Cieplinski, Kassandra Nicholson, Ashley Surette, Avalon Johnson, Lydia Giguere, Casey Hodge, Olivia Nasternak, Caroline Voorhis, and Hilary Anderson.
 
The "C" lineup consisted of coxswain Olivia Siyahian, Francesca D'Ugo, Jennifer Liguori, Jessica Zygmunt, Molly O'Donoghue, Alexandra Steingold, Victoria Hamilton, Rebecca Paul, and Emily Liguori. 
 
Final times:   
 
Marist "B"          16:45.3
Marist "A"          16:45.9
Marist "C"          17:41.7
 
Full Results may be found at http://snake.qra.org/
 
From Head Coach Tom Sanford
"All in all we are very pleased with today's race and results. Placing two even lineups into the top five at any regatta is a nice accomplishment. Having our third crew finish ahead of every other third crew and several B boats is a nice accomplishment. Our freshmen, including two of our walk-ons, got to experience their first collegiate race and got a taste of what they are in for as their collegiate rowing careers take off. Our upperclassmen were excited to finally be able to compete at a fall head race once again. The athletes know how to keep fall racing in perspective and we are looking forward to seeing continued improvement throughout the year. Seriously, we are all just really happy to be rowing again and we know we are in a much better place than at this time last year!! Thank you WPI for hosting the event!"