Avon Rowers to Compete in Boston's Head of the Charles Regatta

The 49th annual Head of the Charles regatta starts Saturday and an Avon girls boat of eight rowers is one of many teams from around the world slated to compete. 

The regatta, scheduled for Oct. 19 and 20 in Boston's Charles River, is regarded as the largest regatta in the world, according to head girls coach Eric Rosow.

"They'll be racing against some 84 of the best junior crews in the world on a challenging, three mile course in Boston," he said. 

The following weekend, Avons boys crew teams will be racing Simsbury and Farmington, two of the strongest public school crew teams in the state, in the Pumpkin Head regatta, coaching staff said. Farmington hosts the Oct. 26 race. 

The girls program lost four rowers who graduated in June, but the team has depth to it with seven seniors who rowed last year returning and five juniors, Rosow said. 

"While we graduated four terrific seniors last year, this year's varsity squad will draw heavily from the depth and experience of its seniors and juniors," Rosow wrote in an email to Patch at the start of the season. "The novice girls also show tremendous potential and it will be exciting to see who they can perform on the water this fall and spring."

On the boys side, head coach John Kostal, who has been with the program since 2008, said that only one rower graduated in June. Eleven seniors from last year's team returned, along with seven juniors. 

He said, "we're looking to channel the enthusiasm of our novice rowers to help develop strong technique that will allow them to be successful as a group as they progress through the program."

The boys and girls programs have 30 novice rowers, who haven't rowed for more than a year, which is the most since 2009, according to the coaches, and "the returning seniors and juniors have demonstrated a strong work ethic."

"It's evident that many maintained or improved their conditioning during the summer. Several participated in rowing camps across the Northeast," the coaches said. "We would describe our experienced rowers as determined -- determined to continue our improvement as measured by our performance against our own personal bests and against our competition.  We would describe our incoming novices as enthusiastic with a great deal of potential."

Rowers from both teams competed in the Oct. 6 Head of the Riverfront regatta in Hartford. Full results are posted on the regatta website.  

Avon placed 23rd in the men's first junior 8+ final (18:26.95) and the girls came in 14th in theirs (18:39.72). 

One of Avon's novice 8+ boats placed seventh (19:05.39) and another took 16th (20:04.92) in the men's junior final race. The girls' novice 8+ boat came in 13th (27:58.35) in the women's junior race.

Avon placed fourth (22:00.44) in the mixed junior 8+ final. In the men's second junior 8+ final, Avon placed 20th (17:21.76) and 29th (18:49.71). 

Avon rowers in the men's junior 4+ final came in 19th (17:37.28) and girls in the first junior 4+ boat came in 13th (19:05.95). 

Rosow co-founded Avon's crew program in 2007 with former coach Soo Passmoor, who left the head coaching post in the summer of 2012. Pam Rosow is the conditioning coach and Chris Dlugolecki is assistant coach. 

"We are excited that we've been able to build on that foundation and create a stable platform from which we can grow and mature the program," the coaches said.