They roll up to the catch and square their oars, preparing for the coxswain to call their first stroke. It is the moment right before all the oars sync up perfectly, as the athletes pull themselves down the lake, with a motive to win their race.
This scenario is a common occurrence for North Creek’s Crew team. Both a spring and fall sport, North Creek High School’s Crew team, led by Coach Geller (and Coach Williams in the spring), is a group of co-ed individuals who enjoy spending their time racing to the finish line with nothing but their oars, sitting on a carbon fiber shell (boat).
For this fall season, North Creek’s Crew is combined for the first time ever with Woodinville High School’s Crew team.
Although North Creek’s team has never before joined forces with another team, they seem to be adjusting well. “I think the Woodinville combination is actually super good for our team as a whole. Our people have more chances to be on a faster boat, and theres just a lot more people to meet,” said Jane Taylor, the girls 4 varsity coxswain.
Woodinville’s team is also brand new to this combined team set up.
“Seeing as how our team is so small and brand new being combined with NC has actually been really nice, we get to learn from more experienced people and and expand our team to people we wouldn’t have met otherwise,” said Liv Kjelstrup, one of the Woodinville crew team captains. “In my opinion the teams get along, Woodinville being a smaller team means we are little bit more connected and close with each member of our team, and NC has a lot more people than we do so its a little bit of a struggle getting all the people on the better team to accept the underdog, but for the most part we get along,” said Kjelstrup.
Currently, the team is in their fall season of 2023. “Its actually been pretty good we are like on the water every week for at least 5 practices, and yeah were not missing anything were doing really good especially on boats,” said Taylor.
The teams row several regattas together through the Kenmore Public Boathouse. “I think the best part is just that we get a lot more chances to build faster boats and we learn more drills from other coaches,” said Taylor.
“We rowed at the American Lake Fall Classic hosted by Holy Names,” said Taylor. “One of our boats took 5th out of 10, one of our boats took 8 out of 12.” She said the best part of the regatta, though, was hanging out with the team.
The teams are now looking forward to the Frostbite Regatta, in Green Lake Seattle, which will be their last race of the season. Taylor is hoping for her team to win (or to do well) at this final race. As for goals for the remainder of the season, “I’m just really hoping that our current rowers can get better and that every new season we can get more people to join,” says Kjelstrup.
