Racing at the first major event of the fall season, the Textile River Regatta in Lowell on Sunday, Oct. 6, the Duxbury boys and girls crews found success against a strong field, returning from Lowell with podium finishes in four events.
Dux crew paced the field in the lightweight events on the day, capturing first place in the women’s lightweight four and the men’s lightweight eight. It also added a silver medal in the women’s varsity four and silver and bronze medals in the men’s lightweight four.
“In the lightweight four, we focused on swinging together to have a clean technical row and it really paid off when we finished in first place by 26 seconds,” senior rower Bridget Curran said.
Duxbury crew posted strong overall results, with the varsity boys notching fifth and eighth place in the 48-boat men’s junior fours field to go along with a seventh-place finish in the men’s junior eights and ninth in the men’s junior eights “B” event, both new team best marks. The Duxbury girls finished second, 10th and 19th in the women’s junior fours, 10th in the women’s junior eight and 11th in the women’s junior eight “B.”
“I was super impressed with the team today,” said varsity boys captain Henry Figler, who raced in the boys lightweight four and lightweight eight. “Going into a big regatta like this you never know what to expect from the team with so many different moving parts throughout the day. However, I’m pleased to say that I feel like everyone came into this race energetic and determined on one goal – to show other teams what Duxbury’s got.”
Figler said that despite the long day, windy conditions and some quick back-to-back racing, the team stayed focus and everyone committed to their individual races. He added that the first big regatta really shows what the team has at this point in the season, and what its training has done so far. Figler said it’s fair to say the team is in a really good place right now, adding that he can’t wait to see how much they can continue to improve in the next few weeks.
“Our kids have put in a ton of work over the past month, and this is a great result for them,” Duxbury head coach Oli Rosenbladt said. “To have every varsity boys boat finish in the top 10 of their event is something we’ve never achieved before, so I feel like we’re on the right track. The team has done a great job of pushing and encouraging each other to get to this point, and these results reflect the good team atmosphere we’ve developed this season.”
Senior rower Caitlin Stehn said the day went very smoothly, which was a great sign considering it was Duxbury’s first full team regatta with the novices starting out their season.
“There’s a lot of potential on this team, so at each practice there’s continuous growth, pushing every rower to do better in order to keep their seat,” Stehn said. “These improvements are showing, as all crews made great progress from the last race to this one. We saw a lot of speed, and I’m very excited to see what’s to come this season.”
Girls senior team captain Libby Weldon also felt that the team performed well. “Today was truly a great day of racing,” she said. “We were all focused in the boat and worked together to achieve a solid placing.”
“The racing was a lot of fun today,” said senior Walt Stanwood, who helped the boys varsity four and varsity Eeght to best-ever placings of fifth and seventh on the day. “Every boat punch above their weight and delivered a great performance.”
Varsity boys coxswain Emma Collins concurred. 
“With a handful of top 10 and podium finishes, today was a really exciting day,” Collins said. “It was proven that the team has great depth and strength across the board. Head of the Charles is just around the corner, and we’re really pumped to continue to put in the work and keep pushing toward becoming one of the fastest programs in the region.”
The Duxbury novice crew also had a strong start to its racing season with the boys novice four finishing eighth of 21 boats and the both the boys and girls novice eights coming in 12th in their respective fields. “I’m very pleased. Our boats looked solid, demonstrating good rhythm and the ability to move the boat,” boys novice coach Chris Lee said.
Duxbury returns to action this Sunday, Oct. 13, at the New England High School & Junior Regional Championships at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, then the Head of the Charles is set for Sunday, Oct. 20.