TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Terrapins Win 2 Rowing Titles

ADVERTISEMENT

By NICHOLAS J.E. MURRAY The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 17, 2007

Tampa Prep's girls novice 4 and the boys junior varsity 4 each won titles at the Sunrise Sprints rowing regatta at Turkey Lake just outside Orlando on Saturday.

The novice 4, led by Andrea Almenia and Erica Goldberg, completed the 1,500-meter course in a time of 4 minutes, 32.9 seconds, finishing 7.1 seconds ahead of Lake Brantley.

The Terrapins junior varsity, led by Drew Goldsberry, Justin Knutter and cox Alli Martin, won in 3:43.6, finishing 7.4 seconds ahead of the Hillsborough crew of Ray Herbst, Dan Ryan, Alex Sails, Bobby Ley and cox Gina Javier.

The wins came despite an accident at the beginning of the week that damaged one of the Terrapins boats, and disrupted the remainder of the team's practice schedule. Despite the setback the team performed strongly to the delight of Coach Emily Brown.

The Terrapins also got a strong performance from their boys varsity 4, which finished second to the Sarasota Scullers in 3:39.0, edging Hillsborough by 0.2 seconds.

The Terriers edged the Terrapins for second place in the boys varsity 8, with the crew finishing in 3:14.9, 8 seconds ahead of the Tampa Prep crew. Hillsborough coach Mike Smith thinks the addition of Steve Maher, a recent Notre Dame graduate who rowed for the Irish, to help coach, and the increase in numbers in the boys team has helped accelerate their development.

In other races, the Terriers girls varsity 4 of Katie Burke, Madeline Kreher, Helen Latimer, Maddy Cuono and cox Molly Samuels finished fourth behind OARS in 3:53.6, and the girls lightweight 4 of Tess Labossierre, Christie Smesko, Molly Morley, Alison Giest and cox Rachelle Idziak finished fourth, 11 seconds behind Lake Brantley in 4:12.7.

"Both of those boats had a great time," Smith said. "I think that it's a good standpoint of what we're looking at going into the spring season and also provided some good information as to where we are now, and what we need to do before we get to our next big race."

RSL Florida Squads Try For National Titles

RSL Florida will try to capture its first national championship this week as four of its teams compete in the United Soccer League's Super-Y Nationals. The RSL boys under-17 and under-14 and girls under-17 teams qualified for the tournament, which is being held in Tampa at the Ed Radice Sports Complex and in Land O' Lakes at the Land O' Lakes Recreation Center, through the summer in regional leagues, while the RSL girls under-15 team was added to the field as a replacement for a withdrawal.

RSL Florida director of coaching Adrian Bush is looking forward to his teams' opportunity to showcase their players on a national level.

The RSL boys under-17 squad, which is the state champion and is led by current Tribune high school player of the year Ryan Griffin, won its division during the summer, and also recently added the Club Directors League title to its list of accomplishments. At SoccerFest, it will play Parsippany, N.J., in the featured match tonight, an honor that has gone in the past to clubs such as Red Bull New York and Miami's Kendall FC. While Bush is pleased his squad was selected to play in the match, he doesn't want it to distract from the team's goal of winning the overall tournament.

The tournament, which ends Tuesday, has come a long way from the days when it would move from location to location each year. Now firmly based in Tampa, the home of the USL headquarters, it has grown to the point where it lives up to the SoccerFest name the tournament is a part of. With a five-on-five tournament, coaching symposium and annual general meeting all taking place during the week, Bush says the tournament is one of the most important in the soccer calendar.

"I tell college coaches all the time, 'This thing is the real deal.' It is a high-level event, it's properly run, there's great activities for the kids outside of just the games. They have so much stuff going on. They have done a great job of making this a real soccer fest."

Panthers Win First Game Of Season

Plant won its first game of the Hillsborough High School Hockey League season with a 9-2 win against Bloomingdale on Saturday.

The Panthers opened up a 5-0 lead after the first period. Alex Siegman scored a hat trick for the Panthers, while C.W. Guyer, Justin Bramm, Mikel Amias and Parker Armstrong also scored.

The Panthers earned a point in their previous game by taking the Tigers to a shootout.

Newsome Blue remained undefeated and on top of the standings with a 12-1 win against Newsome White. Jarred Chinn had a hat trick while Scott Vargas had a goal and three assists, and Tom Kowalski added four assists.

Riverview/Durant was led by Joey Heyer, who scored two goals and added an assist in a 6-2 win against Wharton. Nick Feira added three assists for the combined team, while Stephen Guerre, Jason Wayne, Tanner Jarrett and Nick Palsis scored. George Prieto scored both goals for the Wildcats.

The Tigers remained in second place in the standings as they beat Wesley Chapel 5-3 behind a flurry of four goals late in the third period.

Nate Gotschall and Alex O'Brien had scored for Wesley Chapel to give the Wildcats a 3-1 lead midway through the third, but a pair of goals by Ian Stanley tied the game. Connor Ellis then gave the Tigers a 4-3 lead before Kyle Kortum added a fifth goal late.

Nicholas Murray can be reached at nmurray@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-8243.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT