Brentwood College School located on Mill Bay north of Victoria, British Columbia, put on its 45th annual juniors’ regatta this past weekend with more than 1,700 rowers participating from 34 clubs in western Canada and the Northwest United States.

The competition was spirited, and the growing camaraderie of rival crews who have been racing each other in various regattas this spring and who shared the campus grounds with each other for three days was evident in high fives and group conversations. The beautiful setting was enhanced even further on Friday afternoon as sunny periods chased by rain showers draped intense rainbows across the east-facing venue.

Races are comprised of heats (top two or three move on) and finals plus combinations of experience (novice, junior varsity and varsity), weight (lightweight and open) and age categories (A, any age; B, 16 and under).  A total of 167 events were held on the 1,500-meter course from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning.

Once again Vashon’s crews turned in a solid performance, coming in 10th in overall score and tied for third when results were normalized to the number of events entered.

Friday turned out to be a banner day when 10 of 13 boats made it out of the heat round and into Saturday’s finals, where the team collected four silver and five bronze finishes.  Vashon crews that took second place in Saturday finals were the men’s novice and JV A quads and novice B quad and the women’s novice B quad. Third-place finishers were the women’s varsity B eight, the varsity A and B quads, the JV B quad and the men’s varsity A quad.

On Saturday afternoon, five more boats advanced to Sunday finals, where the lightweight varsity four with Virginia Miller, Maddie McEachern, Shannon Lipe, Emily Milbrath and coxswain Ally Clevenger led from start to finish to take home Vashon’s sole gold medal of the weekend and kept alive a multi-year winning streak for varsity boats at this prestigious regatta.  Sunday’s racing also brought a silver medal for the women’s B varsity double and bronze medals for the women’s B varsity quad and A varsity double.

Overall for the weekend, Vashon rowers advanced 15 boats out of 25 heats with one boat going directly to a final. Medals are not easy to come by at Brentwood, and the weekend total of 13 eclipsed last year’s record of 12. Of 37 Vashon participants, 33 returned home with a medal.  Both Katrina Heffernan and Tabitha Illerbrunn topped the individual medal tally with four each.

The event was an unusual one for Coach Richard Parr, who was not able to make the trip and had to watch the racing from Vashon. With mobile phones slightly warm to the touch all weekend, the distance didn’t impede communications with assistant coach Tom Kicinski, who handled on-site preparation of the crews.

“This regatta was a testimony to the depth we are building in our junior program. The only teams that scored higher in this regatta have more than three times the number of rowers in their programs, ” Parr said.

Two junior men’s and women’s quads and a mixed masters’ eight will race Saturday, May 2, in the Opening Day regatta at the University of Washington.

— Pat Call is the father of a junior rower.