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Spotlight on Simmons

Simmons Crew Glides to Banner Year

The Simmons College crew team concluded one of its best seasons in history this past spring.

The Sharks won the Women's Division Championship at the New England Fours Championship Regatta in May for the first time in the program's 29-year history.

Simmons College Varsity four boat at Head of the Charles Regatta

The varsity four, comprised of freshman coxswain Nicole Gallant, senior Regina Yopak, juniors Nicole Richards and Whitney Airgood, and sophomore Elisabeth Schwarz, finished behind Middlebury College to earn the silver. Their team completed the course with a time of 7:48.106.

The second varsity four squad, consisting of junior coxswain Kaitlyn Cavanaugh, and sophomores Rachel Franchi, Jennifer DuBois, Claire Anagnostopulos, and Lauren Searls, defeated five other crew teams to capture the gold in their tier. They finished with a time of 7:57.344.

"The team's successful performance this year came as a result of our student-athletes' hard work and dedication to the sport," said Simmons Crew Coach Nikolay Kurmakov, a former national rowing champion for the Soviet Union.

Crew Coach Nikolay Kurmakov

The program's successful year began last October, when the Sharks earned a bronze medal in the varsity four event at the world-renowned Head of the Charles Regatta. Simmons placed third out of 27 boats, finishing behind Division I institutions Penn State and Bucknell Universities, to capture a medal for the first time.

The team carried the momentum into the spring portion of the season, earning the respect of many coaches in the region with its varsity four boat ranking No. 1 in New England across all divisions for four straight weeks. The varsity eight squad also was ranked all four weeks, reaching as high as eighth and finishing 13th.

Varsity eight boat at Head of the Charles Regatta

Kurmakov said the strong finishes in the fall helped motivate the team during the winter off-season. "When we started training again in February (for spring season), the team was already in very good shape."

The program's successful year was capped by the recent news that Wendy Campanella, a Simmons alumna and former member of the rowing squad was named to the 2007 U.S. National Rowing Team. Campanella, a member of the Simmons undergraduate class of 1996 and a 2002 graduate of the Simmons School of Health Sciences, will represent the U.S. in the Lightweight Women's Double at the FISA World Rowing Championships in Munich in August.

Photo by Michiel Bartman
Alumna Wendy Campanella (on left) and her rowing partner, Jana Heere, at practice on Philadelphia's Schuylkill River. The pair recently won the Lightweight Double event at the National Selection Regatta to earn them spots on the U.S. 2007 National Rowing Team.

"I'm very happy because [Campanella] continues to row, which means that as a coach, I did something right." said Kurmakov, who introduced the sport to Campanella when she was an undergraduate student.

Kurmakov said that the team is already looking forward to the 2007-2008 season, led by a varsity boat team, which lost only one member to graduation.