By: Emily Thacker and Lander Bachert

This past weekend the top men’s and women’s eights were privileged with the opportunity to travel to Chattanooga, Tennessee for the 26th annual Head of the Hooch regatta. The Hooch is second largest regatta in the nation with more than 10,000 coaches, rowers, family members and regatta spectators filling the waterfront viewing area. There were nearly 1,300 boats entered and over 5,000 rowers competing in this year’s two-day head race, including the US Men’s National Team.

Grand Valley Crew’s faced stiff competition against many of the nation’s top squads, but did not walk away empty-handed. The women finished an impressive 12th place in the championship eight, finishing just seconds behind top scholarship boats. The women’s club four earned a bronze medal in their event. The men took home a silver medal from the championship eight, finishing just behind Georgia Tech’s Crew and trailed the national team by only one minute. They were presented their medals and personally congratulated the US National Team. The men’s championship fours raced to a remarkable 1st and 4th place finish in their events. The mixed four took home a gold from their race as well.

The Grand Valley Lakers sent their Lightweight team to represent at The Heritage Fall Classic this weekend. The Lightweight team came away with a 3rd, 2nd and 1st place, sneaking in just behind Wisconsin’s LWT 4 for 2nd and 3rd, and beating MSU in the LWT 8 race for 1st place.

This weekend proved to be an exciting closure to what has been a very successful fall season. The Laker Navy is looking forward to getting stronger and faster this winter, so their spring season can be filled with even more successes.

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