On Saturday, April 15th, the Pingree rowing team had its first regatta of the season against Brewster Academy and Berwick Academy at Pingree’s home lake, Chebacco. Because of limited practice time on the water due to events and weather conditions, only the two varsity boats raced at that time. But after some more time and work, all boats would be out on the water with everybody racing by Saturday, May 6. On May 6, girls’ boats 1 and 2 came in first and boys’ boat 1 came in second, and 2 finished last due to a quick hot seat of a non-regular member of that boat. 

After a difficult season last year with the loss of very important seniors, the team is rebuilding and working extremely hard to create a great record this year. With tremendous head coaches Mr. Kloman and Mrs. Barrett, both with college rowing experience, the team is working at becoming a more competitive and serious team. 

The boys’ boat raced in the seed 2 race coming in second place with Issac Amigo sitting in stroke, Evan Bocchino rowing in 3, senior captain Dylan Leonard rowing in 2, and Evan Bechard in a bow. After very limited practice with rowing all 4s on the water, Dylan said “At first I was a little bit iffy about it, I just wanted to cross that finish line, but we got out on the water and started moving pretty nicely…when Kloman said to row, we went and we killed it…I think it was a very good way to start off the season.”

The girls’ boat raced first in the seed 1 race coming in second place to Brewster with Berwick coming in last. With two new members to girls’ boat 1 this year, it has been a challenging but successful run thus far. Girls’ boat 1 consists of captain Izzy Barone sitting in stroke, Kate Stella in 3 seat, Alexa Nova Vargas in 2 seat, and Morgan McLaughlin rowing in bow. Senior captain Izzy Barone said, “I think we held our own and surprised the other teams at the start of the race…I think if we work on our sync and being together more we can definitely improve our speed and agility and win the next race.”