New York State Scholastic Championships

Race Results

Winning Team

The Wappingers Men's Varsity 4+ Team: Erin Gisolfi (coxswain), William Karafelis, A.J. Knickerbocker, Louis Masi, Jason Miller and Coach Kevin Piotti.

Many NY State school districts do not have crew teams. For those that do, some districts are not as affluent as others and therefore the local districts do not fund high school teams. In recognition of this dichotomy, the NYS Rowing Championships established two divisions: Club and Scholastic. In the 9th year of the Wappingers Crew Club program, our team won the Club Division Championships and captured second place overall.

This victory represented a major milestone for our parent funded program as we became the first in the history of our club to qualify for the Scholastic Rowing Association Nationals. Since all members of our boat attend John Jay Senior High School, we were able to accept an invitation to Nationals as a scholastic entry.

Race Recording Time Place Coxswain Recap
Men's Varsity Senior 4+, 1500m Time Trials 5th overall 5:28.27 Even though the start on this race piece was rushed and not our best due to our lack of practice with flying starts, we were able to make up time during our middle piece and our strong sprint to finish in 5th place, qualifying us to advance to semis later in the day.
Men's Varsity Senior 4+, 1500m Semi-Finals 1st in heat / 2nd overall 5:49.42 Although we had a strong current fighting against us and white capping water, we used our many days of practice on the Hudson River to our advantage. While many teams were crippled by the harsh conditions, we rowed our best piece up to this point of the season. While we didn't start off in first place, as we moved into our middle seven piece we pulled ahead with only one boat close to our stern. I then called our sprint earlier than our closest competition and we left them behind to finish first in our semi heat and second overall.
Men's Varsity Senior 4+, 1500m Finals 2nd in heat / 2nd overall 5.22.27 As this was the last states race for all my boys, we went onto the course with one goal: race our absolute best. Even though our start was higher than usual at a 38 stroke rating, we started off in fourth place. To improve our placement, I called two power tens before our middle piece which helped us to pull ahead to second place by the start of our sprint. Although we weren't able to catch the first place boat, we met our goal of racing the best race we could and were all proud of our piece. The net result was that we finished in second place overall but finished first overall in the club division.

Disclaimer: All times are derived from official event postings. Any justification for discrepancies between recording times and posted finish times is beyond the scope of this student portfolio.