Crew fresh in N.H.

Elana Lipman has boatfuls of men at her command. It’s not a new thing, either. She’s really gotten used to it, this whole wrapped-around-her-megaphone thing – wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ever since her sophomore year of high school, it’s been like this.

Lipman, now a freshman at Boston University, has been a coxswain on men’s crew teams since that time and continued to fill that position for the BU freshman men’s crew team as they competed at the Dartmouth Invitational last weekend.

It’s an enviable position. The men don’t move without her saying so. Not an inch, lest they incur her wrath.

“On the water I steer the boat,” Lipman said. “I also help the coach run practice, work on power and technique and motivate the crew.”

Lipman’s choice as to whether or not to transfer to the women’s team was made easy once she got to BU.

“We had too many coxswains on the women’s team and not enough on the men’s team,” Lipman said. “Since it was going to be my first year on the varsity women’s team, it was easier to switch me over than someone who had been with the girls for a year or two.”

For Lipman and her teammates, that switch certainly paid off. BU’s freshman ‘A’ boat came in third with a time of 14:37.8, while the ‘B’ boat came in ninth with a time of 15:02.4. Rutgers University and Trinity College finished ahead of BU with times of 14:21.1 and 14:26.2, respectively.

“This was a good first start for the team,” said the freshman team coach David LeFebvre. “It’s basically a big scrimmage for the freshmen, and I think both boats did pretty well. By being up there, they get to put themselves in the best position possible to win when the races matter.”

Part of the reason it was such a good start was because of the amount of practice the team does when preparing for the meets.

“Leading up to the race we were just trying to get everyone rowing together,” said freshman Joshua Novak. “It was a lot of slow technique, but we progressed quickly over the past week. Getting up early is never easy, but everyone handled it and the time put in during practice paid off in the race.”

But the rewards went far past just the time on the finish line clock. Hanover, N.H. was picture perfect as the boats hit the water.

“The weather was great,” Lipman said. “Clear skies, good temperature. It may have been a bit too sunny for the rowers on the water though, but nothing they couldn’t handle.”

And learning to handle a lot more than the elements is something that the Terriers seem to know how to do very well.

“We got to pass some boats and were challenged by some others,” said freshman Harrison Macris. “There was one Dartmouth boat that kept hanging off our stern and making moves, but luckily the boat I was in ended up crossing right behind the third BU boat that started first, so we passed about three or four boats.”

After racing in the Head of the Charles on Oct. 22-23, the freshmen could take some perspective from racing in two very different scenes.

In the Head of the Charles, the boats were made up of four upperclassmen rowers. At Dartmouth, eight somewhat inexperienced men and women took control of the oars. For the freshmen, the race was a great way to settle down after the excitement of one on Boston’s big stage.

“[Dartmouth] was definitely different,” Macris said. “There’s not as much pressure, because you know that you are in a boat with novices rather than in a boat with guys who are all older than you. Plus the venue was a lot smaller so it was more of a race to see where we were. Conditions at Dartmouth were a lot better too, the water was really flat.”

The Terriers have no doubt that no matter what the conditions are, they will be able to excel in meets when the real season starts.

“We have a good group of guys rowing now, and I look forward to racing with them again,” Novak said.

The men finish the season at the Foot of the Charles on Saturday.