May 15, 2006

PHILADELPHIA - Keyed by a veteran group of seniors, Saint Joseph's put an exclamation point on a second straight Dad Vail team title by capturing the gold medal in the women's Varsity 8 event and taking home the prized Bergman Trophy as the Dad Vail champions for teh first time in program history.

The culmination of four years of competition, seniors Katie Parry, Brianna Kearns, Amanda Holland and Jenn Linck capped their Hawk careers in thrilling fashion. Unseeded, but experienced, SJU rowed with poise and confidence having already defeated most of the Dad Vail field in earlier season competition, including medal-winning performances at the Knecht Cup, Bergen Cup and San Diego Crew Classic.

"The girls who are seniors now were our best freshman class ever," related head coach Gerry Quinlan. "That's when we began to develop our personality."

The quartet of seniors anchored a Varsity 8 lineup that also featured one junior (Meghan Henry) and three freshmen (Lauren Sysol, Kaitlin Reehill and Debbie Bateman).

The Hawks easily advanced through Friday's opening heat into Saturday's semifinal and then moved on to the final with a convincing win on Saturday morning.

Saint Joseph's then prevailed in a thrilling final that saw the top five boats separated by just tenths of a second coming down the stretch. Sitting in fourth place at the 1,000 meter mark, the Hawks edged ahead and held off the field to win in a time of 6:40.02. They bested nemesis Atlantic 10 Conference rival Massachusetts by 1.56 seconds and third through fifth place were decided by just 0.84 seconds.

"We knew it was going to be six across," stated Holland about the fantastic finish.

"We're not a very big of physical group," explained Quinlan. "We knew we had to get out early. We took a real big move through the turn, got out, got a lead and just held it."

The win capped another dominating performance by SJU at the Dad Vail as the Hawks' men and women combined to take home teh Jack Bratten trophy as the overall champions for teh second consecutive year.