February 4, 2003

GENEVA, N.Y.--Leaving their frozen canal behind, the Hobart and William Smith crew teams will travel to Gainesville, Ga., on March 7, for their nine-day spring break training trip. The teams are hoping to find favorable training conditions south of South Carolina.

Mike Guerrieri, Hobart’s head rowing coach, sums up the need for a training trip like this, “It's essential that the spring season starts out with a good reintroduction to on-water rowing. The indoor rowing machines are great for improving fitness, but now it’s time to prepare for our spring competitions with some real rowing, outdoors.”

So far the closest thing to real rowing that the Hobart crew team has experienced this year was a trip to Syracuse for a stint in the
Orangemen’s rowing tanks.

“The William Smith team planned it well this spring," Guerrieri added. “They were able to get on the water once before the canal refroze this week. But we had fun and took some valuable strokes in the tanks at Syracuse. Hopefully things will thaw out in Geneva while we are away.”

William Smith will scrimmage Ithaca during the trip on March 14th.

Hobart crew opens the racing season on March 29, against Ithaca and Massachusetts in Ithaca. William Smith’s first official race is April 5, against Ithaca, Pacific Lutheran, and Marist.