Ramsey, New Jersey - Rockland Rowing competitors had an opportunity to test their fitness mid-way through the winter season on Saturday at the Ironmen Erg Classic hosted by Don Bosco Prep. This year's race had 370 entrants from 19 clubs and rowers competed in a distance of 2,000 meters on the indoor rowing machines. Rockland's under 19 rowers produced solid results capturing gold, silver and bronze medals and the majority of the team set new personal bests.
On the youth team, Juliette Frank Ramapo NJ '17 defeated 30 competitors to bring home gold in the girl's varsity high school open event (7:25.1), making this the third consecutive year RRA has won this title; Gabriele Welp IHA '19 won silver in the girl's varsity high school lightweight event out of 29 entries with a time of 8:00.6; and Adrian Bugnacki Briarcliff '17 took bronze in the men's high school novice event in a field of nine (7:13.7). Sophomore Vanessa Even-Chen Ramapo NJ '19, one month new to the sport was just shy of earning hardware. She placed fourth (7:59.9) among 13 in the girl's novice event and had this to say about her first ever 2k race experience, "When the scores were posted from my event and I saw how well I had done, I was overcome with excitement. Being able to see the results from all of the hard days of practice was incredibly rewarding. Ironmen helped me to get excited to continue improving my 2k score."
Up next, Rockland's competitive youth will travel to Boston for CRASH-B's on February 12.