Shocker Rowing

2008-2009 Press Releases

6-1-2009 / WSU Rowing Signs Third Local Recruit

Wichita State Rowing signed Sydney Fish to its 2009/2010 roster. Fish, a 2009 graduate of Wichita East high school joins two other local recruits, Sydney Blanton from Trinity Academy of Wichita and Grant Milford of Maize High School.

“We just ended the 08/09 season finishing 5th in the country in the novice men’s four,” said Assistant Coach Tori Breithaupt. “Of this boat, two were former high school rowers: Malcolm Johnson and coxswain Isabel Villaneda van Vloten. If we can do so well with two former rowers, I’m really excited to see what four experienced novice can do for the team.” (The fourth is red shirt Kevin Sossa ’12).

Fish has been a part of the Wichita Rowing Club for 2 years where most recently she placed first in the women’s junior double at 09 Great Plains Regatta. She was also the gold medal winner at the 2009 Shocker Sprints in both the 2000 meter and 500 meter junior women’s events.

“Sydney has the athletic mentality we’re looking for,” said Head Coach Calvin Cupp, “she understands what it means to be a student-athlete, how to balance athletics and academics. I’m looking forward to her leadership on the women’s novice team.”

High school: Wichita East High School
Home town: Wichita, KS
Rowing experience: two years
Position: port and starboard, sculling
Honors and awards: National Art Honors Society member... letterman in high school swimming... first place in novice 2k and 500m at Shocker Sprints Indoor Regatta
Personal: parents are (mother) Marty Fish, and (father) Dave Fish... two brothers, also attending WSU... Captain of the Wichita Rowing Association junior team with Coach Brian Adamson... four year swimmer on East High team with coach Joe Hutchinson and competitive swimmer for 12 years... advanced placement English, art, chemistry, and US history student...majoring in geology at WSU
Why WSU: WSU is a top notch school and I’m very excited to start there this fall. I’ve been offered many opportunities, both academically and athletically, that are very generous and exciting. I’ve had a great chance to get to know the coaches this year through the closeness of the WSU rowing team and the Wichita rowing association, as well as much of the team. By learning about all of these folks and already having friends in the team and coaches, I can say I’m going to have a blast on the team next year and learn a lot!

6-1-2009 / Three WSU Rowers Make All American Team

Kimberly Calaman was awarded third team All American, Peter Fast was a Regional winner and Fast and Lisa Burns were Academic All Americans of the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA).

Coaches of the 150 member organization could each submit 5 women and 5 men candidates. From these nominees, 9 student-athletes were recognized from each region. After the conclusion of the National Regatta on May 24, the regional officers chose the All Team Americans. Calaman and Fast were chosen for excellence in 2,000 meter testing score, career racing results, accomplishments within the team, individual performances and the coach recommendation performance of the crew, with most consideration given to the ACRA results.

Fast and Burns were awarded 2nd team Academic All American, the awards going to junior or senior athletes who have a cumulative 3.7 GPA or higher.

5-26-09 / Wichita State Rowing Medals at Nationals

Oak Ridge, TN…WSU Rowing medals in the women’s doubles and advances three boats to the Grand Finals at the American Collegiate Rowing Championships (ACRA), the best team effort in WSU Rowing history at a National event. Not only was the racing fantastic, but Student-Athletes Peter Fast ’10 and Kim Calaman ’10 were awarded All American honors at the regatta, an award given to athletes who have been in the top boat all season, have great sportsmanship and leadership. The athletes are nominated by the coaches and selected by the ACRA committee. Fast and Lisa Burns ’10 were honored as academic All Americans, rowers who have a 3.8 or higher.

The ACRAs are the National Championship for non-athletic department sponsored rowing programs in the US. Teams come from both coasts and the midwest. WSU always looks forward to ACRAs because the level of competition is so high. “During this season, WSU has often taken off leaving its competition behind, at ACRA’s we know we’ll be challenged all the way down the course,” said head coach Calvin Cupp.

Rachel Cartwright ’09 and Carlie Miller ’12 took the Bronze medal in the women’s doubles, third to Kansas at 2nd and 1st place Oklahoma City University. “Going into the race we felt really confident and ready,” Miller said. The double is a sculling event, in which each rower has two oars instead of the one oar in the sweep events. Most collegiate rowing takes place in the fours and eights (sweep events), but a few programs such as WSU feel that offering both sculling and sweep rowing to its student-athletes affords them more racing opportunities and an overall better quality experience. Said Cartwright, “I was happy to be able to see how I could do in something completely different.”

WSU’s three fours all placed out of their heats and semi finals to advance to the Grand Finals, where all of them took fifth place.

The men’s varsity and novice fours each needed to finish in the top 4 of 6 in their heats on Saturday May 23 to advance to their afternoon semi finals. The novice men placed first and the varsity men second.

The afternoon semi finals posed more challenging competition and requirements, each had to be in the top 3 of six to advance to Sunday’s Grand Finals. In their semi, the novice finished third to Ohio State and Grand Valley.

Said Sam Smith ’10 of the men’s varsity four, “We knew Dayton would be ahead, and Sonoma close, our main goal was to stay ahead of UCLA – they have a good program and even though we had beaten them in the heats, we knew they would pick up more speed.” The close pushing of UCLA helped WSU to be third over the finish line.

The women’s fours requirements for advancing to the finals were more challenging in some regards. In the morning heats, the first place boat automatically advanced to the grand final and the others re raced in the afternoon. The University of New Hampshire had the lead from the start followed by WSU but both were beaten over the finish line by a late charge from the University of Colorado.

In their semis, the same requirements existed: finish first to advance to grand finals. Going into the semis, the women felt very confident, “We stayed long, constant and positive, “ said stroke Melissa Koehn ’11. The women rowed an 8:03, 10 seconds faster than the second place boat, easily sending them to Sunday’s Grand finals.

Going into the finals, “we felt nervous, knowing we needed to race better than we ever have. We stepped it up and had a good race, even though we didn't medal, but I’m really looking forward to next year. In the boat, the rowers were all 2nd year rowers and the coxswain a first year. Next year, we will be more experienced as most program’s varsity boats have third and fourth year rowers.”

In the varsity men’s four final, “we had a good laugh at the start line as we looked across at the other athletes who were all larger than us. We’re a mismatch of height and weight, but somehow we make it come together,” said 3 seat Peter Fast. Height is a benefit in rowing as 6’5” Fast knows, but with only four varsity men, Fast has to follow 6’0” Jimmy Fast stroke for stroke or the boat doesn't go.

The varsity men were particularly pleased with their time of 6:52.0, their fastest of the season and two seconds faster than last year’s best.

The ACRAs ends the 08-09 season for the Shockers, by far one of its best seasons. “We won the Upper Midwest, won the state championships, and won the Midwest Championships, this is first time we have won all three in addition to putting four boats in the Grand Finals at a National Championship,” said head Coach Calvin Cupp.

5-09-2009 / Wichita State Rowing Wins Governor's Cup at Sunflower State Championships

Wichita State Rowing takes first in every event except the novice women’s four to win the Governor’s Cup at the Sunflower State Championships.

The traveling event hosted by WSU this year was meant to take place on the Arkansas River with the finish in front of the Douglas St bridge so that Riverfest runners and participants could watch the racing and the staging would occur from the BG Products boathouse, home of the Shocker Rowers. Unfortunately, the Arkansas River’s discharge was at 9,000 cubic feet per second, making it far too dangerous for man powered boats to attempt to navigate, let alone race against and finish faster than at a snail’s crawl. Normal flow is around 500 cubic feet.

Fortunately, Wichita area rowers have been rowing from the shores of the Little Arkansas for several years and so the three teams loaded their boats on trailers and headed to Riverside for racing in Riverside Park. The current was still fast, but raceable. The course was shortened from its normal 2000 meters to 1300 m to be able to race on a straightaway, otherwise a turn would give the inside lane an unfair advantage.

WSU Women’s Varsity Four was the real delight of the day, taking the win from Kansas who had beaten them last weekend in Topeka. Coxswain Lisa Burns, rowers Kacie Laha, Kim Calaman, Melissa Koehn and Stephanie Lillie finished the race in 4:04.7 to KU’s 4:10.1 and KSU’s 4:39.8. “I’ve been racing these girls {KU} since last year where they came in third to our fourth last year at Nationals,” commented Lillie. “I really wanted to hand them a win…Finally.”
WSU’s novice women’s four also had a surprise ending. Novice rowers can only compete as novice their first year of collegiate rowing. WSU only has four novice women, one of them, Eva Spare, has been injured until two weeks ago, so the rowers have not been able to compete together. With little practice time together, the four was not expected to do well. They started the race in the lead, and unfortunately dropped to KU who finished in 4:10.9, but WSU still finished ahead of KSU, 4:25.2 and 4:32.7.

WSU men’s boats all brought home gold, as was expected, having beaten Kansas and KSU several times earlier in the season.

The team now spends two weeks at home gearing for Nationals on May 23 and 24.

5-04-2009 / All WSU Rowers Medal at Great Plains Regatta in Topeka

The Great Plains Regatta on Lake Shawnee in Topeka, KS saw intense racing by WSU Rowing especially in the Men’s Varsity events and women’s eight, with each and every Shocker rower sporting a bronze, silver or gold medal on the bus ride home.

The Men’s Varsity eight, four, pair and lightweight four all took first place. The novice men’s lightweight four, mixed four and women’s pair also brought home the gold for the Shockers. Also placing well were Malcolm Johnson and Allen Strickler in the men’s double who placed 2nd in a 7 boat race. Johnson and Strickler have not rowed the 2x all season and this was Johnson’s 7th race of the day and Strickler’s 4th. The women’s eight has all season long been making great strides, Saturday saw the Shockers beat all of the regional club programs and finish behind Drake and Creighton, two fully funded NCAA athletic programs. The women’s varsity four beat Creighton’s B boat which had two weeks ago easily beaten WSU. The Shockers placed 4th overall out of 9. The women’s team was also able to race a women’s novice four, the first of the season, with Eva Spare off the injured list. Hannah Schell, Kelsey Corrigan, Spare, Carlie Miller and cox Lisa Burns placed third in this event.

The novice men finally had some good competition from Midwest teams. After having beaten Iowa at the Upper Midwest, the Hawkeyes were determined to beat the Shockers and unfortunately did in the men’s novice eights and four events. “Being beaten can be a good training tool,” Assistant Coach Tori Breithaupt said, “especially when we assess what we could have done differently and practice to be stronger next time. At the National Championships, we know we are going to face very stiff competition, we need every blip and bump in the season we can get. If we’ve already handled being behind after 500 meters then we know what we need to do to take the lead again. If all season long, we’re always in the lead, this doesn't give us as many opportunities at different race strategies.”

The Shockers host KU and KSU at home this weekend and head to National Championships on the 23rd and 24th of May.

4-29-09 / WSU Rowing Hosts KU and KSU on Big Arkansas River May 9

There are a few sports in which Wichita State, the University of Kansas and Kansas State University are able to compete against the other two schools all at the same time; rowing is one of them. All three school’s rowing teams will race in the Sunflower State Championships in Wichita on May 9, 2009 at 9-11:30 a.m.

The races will take place out of the BG Products Boathouse on the Arkansas River. The start line will be just north of the Lincoln Street bridge with races concluding by the Hyatt. Viewing can be seen anywhere along the river or from the Lewis St. bridge. Spectators are welcome to park at the BG Boathouse and view from the boathouse’s banks where refreshments are available and race play-by-play can be heard.

Wichita State Rowing has been competing against KU and KSU since WSU’s crew inception in 1975. While WSU has won the Governor’s cup (all around trophy) in recent years, WSU has not dominated every year.

WSU goes into this year’s races having already beaten KU at the John Hunter Regatta in the men’s novice eight, men’s and women’s varsity four events. WSU was faster than KSU at the Upper Midwest in the same events. One event that will be hotly contested is the women’s eight and novice women’s four events in which all three teams’ speeds are equitable.

In years past, there has been an alumni event. Kansas rowers interested in racing other alumni should contact WSU Assistant Coach Tori Breithaupt. 978-3465

Special to this regatta will be a boat naming ceremony at 10:30 AM. Boats are given names for people who have contributed to the program; for example, one of the boats is named the Giovanni Bancheri in honor of former WSU Rowing coach John Bancheri who lead the team in the 1980s. The new name is being kept a secret until the 9th.

4-26-2009 / WSU Rowing Takes Men's Team Trophy Second Week in a Row

Wichita, KS- This Saturday the WSU Rowing Team competed in the Midwest Intercollegiate Rowing Championship, Tulsa, OK, where the WSU men took the Men’s team award a second week in a row (the Upper Midwest Team Trophy was won last week), while the women fought against some of the fastest crews of the nation.

The Midwest Intercollegiate Rowing Championship, is a regatta for rowing teams without a distinct rowing conference; Drake, Creighton and WSU represent the Missouri Valley, Tulsa and SMU, Conference USA and the University of Oklahoma City, the NAIA. This year was Wichita State’s first appearance in the competition.

The men won the team points trophy by placing first in the Novice 4+, Varsity 4+, and Varsity 8+ events. The men's eight of coxswain Alfredo Ortiz, and rowers Jimmy Sharp, Malcolm Johnson, Clint Simmons, Peter Fast, Sam Smith, Paul Houston, Brandon Manuel, and Allen Strickler finished the race with the fastest time of the day of 5.52.

“I was glad to see that they raced fast and hard, especially given to the poor water conditions,” Assistant Coach Tori Breithaupt said. The rowers had to battle against 7-8 mile currents and wind gusts of 20 mph. The current was so strong the race course was shortened to 1500 meters instead of the standard 2000 meters to prevent being pushed against bridge pillars.

In the Women’s Varsity 4 event , (coxswain Maggi McKibben, rowers Kacie Laha, Kimberly Calaman, Melissa Koehn, and Stephanie Lillie) advanced from heats to the petite final where they took second place with a time of 8:12. The JV women’s four also placed second with a time of 8:47 (coxswain Diana Troung, rowers Daphne Sierra, Carlie Miller, Hannah Schell, and Rachel Cartwright).

“We’re pleased to see that the women’s boats are getting faster every race, early in the season they were 1 ½ minutes behind Creighton, that time has decreased to 25 seconds and the men continue to pull out fast times,” Breithaupt said. “ We are looking forward for good quality racing and challenging competition next weekend in Topkea at the Great Plains Regatta.”

May 9th the WSU Rowers will host KU and KSU at home on the Big Arkansas. Races start at 9 AM and can be viewed from the Riverwalk.

4-22-2009 / WSU Rowing Signs Two Local Recruits

Wichita State Rowing is pleased to announce the addition of Grant Milford of Maize High School and Sydney Blanton of Trinity Academy High School in Wichita to its 2009-2010 squad.

Milford, a 6 yr football player and Blanton, a 7 year swimmer, both began rowing this winter for the Wichita Rowing Association with coach (and former WSU rower) Brian Adamson ‘92. Blanton, impressed with the Barton School of Business at WSU, knew that she wanted a team experience in college, but WSU had no swimming team. “I discovered that a lot of swimmers take up rowing as a second sport. I began in January rowing for Wichita Rowing Association to see how I would like it and I really enjoy it,” Blanton said.

“We’re really excited to have picked up Sydney,” said Head Coach Calvin Cupp, “having more student athletes that know what rowing is, is a huge boon to our program. Sydney is excited to come be a student athlete and contribute to the program we’re trying to grow. It’s also really nice to have two local kids with rowing experience who are coming to row for their hometown college.”

Milford picked up rowing because he thought it looked like a great sport and now loves the experience and workout. The Shocker coaches were immediately impressed with Milford’s race results at the Shocker Sprints Indoor Rowing In February 2009 where Milford placed first among junior (high school) men and second in the 500 meter open category beating several college-aged athletes. The coaches approached Milford and were pleased to learn Milford was already interested in WSU because of its renowned engineering program.

Both athletes have been offered scholarships by WSU Rowing. Milford will officially sign at 10:45 AM Friday April 24 at Maize High School. Blanton was offered the Don and Lee Wadsworth scholarship named in honor of the Wadsworths in honor of their generous contributions to WSU Rowing.

Milford and Blanton will join red shirt athlete Kevin Sossa on the novice squad next year. Sossa ’12, an engineering major, has been with the team since January 2009. “This is a great investment on Kevin’s part and we’re really impressed with the technical and physical progress he has made,” said Assistant Coach Tori Breithaupt. “Being a red shirt shows a lot of character and determination to be as prepared and experienced as he can, Kevin can be a good role model to the novice rowers and an example for other red shirt rowers could use in future,” commented Coach Cupp.

Most of the rowing team is and will continue to be walk-ons, but having three student-athletes with previous rowing experience will help drive WSU Rowing to future success. Much of the current Shocker wins can be attributed to the leadership of Malcolm Johnson ’12 and Isabel Villaneda van Vloten ’12, both former rowers.

Sydney Blanton
High School: Trinity
Hometown: Wichita, KS
Rowing Experience: port, starboard and sculling
Other sports: 7 years swimming, 7 years soccer, 9 years basketball
Major: Business-Entrepreneurship
Awards and achievements: National Honors Society (11,12); Headmaster's Honor Roll (9-12); Missouri Valley Swimming All-Academic Team 2006-2007, 2007-2008; Sedgwick County Zoo Volunteer Service Award Summer 2007; Varsity Swimming lettered (9-11)
Personal: parents Gary and Althea Blanton. Father is a WSU alumnus.

Grant Milford
High School: Maize High School
Hometown: Maize, Kansas
Rowing experience: port, starboard and sculling
Other sports: football 6 years, track 2 years
Awards and achievements: Sedgwick County Scholarship, General Academic Scholarship
Major: Computer Engineering
Personal: Parents Rocky and Leisa Milford, both WSU Alumni, siblings Kelsey and Brock

Kevin Sossa
High School: Andover Central
Hometown: Andover, Kansas
Rowing Experience: Red Shirt WSU Rowing
Position: Port or Starboard and sculling
Major: Engineering
Personal: David and Martha Sossa sister Jasmine
Awards and achievements: lettered in track, wrestling and football, football Bi-District Champions
Sports: 3 yrs football, 2 track, 2 in wrestling
Why WSU Rowing: “Can't imagine doing anything else!”

4-20-2009 / Wichita State Rowing wins the Men’s Team Championship Trophy at Upper Midwest Collegiate Sprints.

Both the men’s varsity and novice eight take first place in their races to help put the team over Nebraska, Kansas State, Iowa, St. Thomas and the University of Kansas in Omaha, Nebraska Sunday April 19, 2009 at the Upper Midwest Collegiate Rowing Sprints.

The men’s eight of coxswain Alfredo Ortiz, rowers Jimmy Sharp, Malcolm Johnson, Clint Simmons, Peter Fast, Sam Smith, Paul Houston, Brandon Manuel, and Allen Strickler started the day for WSU with an easy win in their 8s heat. The rowers then raced in several other events before finishing the day with a 3 boat length win of 4:28, the second place boat, Iowa finished 17.6 seconds behind WSU and .2 seconds in front of 3rd place KSU.

Going into the Men’s Eight Final, WSU knew St. Thomas would have a fast start and good speed. St. Thomas’ four won the Dad Vails men’s four championship in 2008 and those rowers were back on the water. “Even though we knew that St. Thomas was the ‘better’ boat, we knew that we had to get out and get the job done in order to win the team point trophy,” Brandon Manuel commented, “we were told that St. Thomas would have a very fast start, when we saw that we were ahead at the beginning of the eight, this gave us great motivation.”

The hardest part of the day for many of the men’s rowers was pacing themselves. Manuel and Johnson both raced in 6 races that day, 5 for Simmons and Houston Strickler, Ortiz and Sharp in 4, and 3 for the others. In each of the early races, the boats were commanded to get ahead and if ahead by open water, to take the rate down. Several teams are known for starting slow and finishing with a fast sprint so it’s not an easy task for the WSU rowers to get ahead and see a boat creeping back on them and have the courage to take it slow. Despite pacing themselves, the lightweight, novice A and men’s varsity four A all took first place. The men’s varsity four B took second by .08 to Oklahoma City University.

The men's novice eight also had several boat lengths of open water over their competitors finishing with a time of 6:12.58, Nebraska was second, 16.29 seconds behind. KU finished third.

The women’s team brought home their first medals of the season with a third place win in the women’s varsity four and the women’s eight placed out of their heat to go to the grand final where they finished sixth.

WSU heads into next weekend's races in Tulsa, Oklahoma excited to test how much speed they have been gaining over the course of the season, particularly the women's eight. At the Texas Invitational, WSU women's eight lost to Central Oklahoma by 45 seconds. This weekend, WSU lost to UCO by 3 sec, who had lost to UCO by 10 seconds on the previous weekend. Most teams aim to get faster over the course of a season, but gaining 30 to 40 seconds on a competitor is a huge task. Furthermore, the WSU lineup has not changed over the course of the season, whereas UCO and OCU have had depth to cull from in order to feed the fastest lineup of the weekend.

WSU Rowing Medals in Five Events, Fourth in the Other Three

Wichita State Rowing heads away from the John Hunter Regatta bearing medals in 5 events and fourth in the remaining 3. The regatta took place on Lake Lanier, Georgia, home of the 1996 rowing Olympic events. WSU headed into the regatta coming off strong racing in March and were eager to test their speed against fast east coast teams such as Emory, Georgia Tech and Georgia.

WSU definitely caught the attention of the east coast who might not have known who we were until the Novice Men’s Four took a gold with open water early in the day over NC State, Georgia Tech and others. The boat of (cox: Isabel Villaneda van Vloten ‘12, Clint Simmons ‘12, Paul Houston ‘12, Brandon Manuel ’10 and Malcolm Johnson, ‘12) finished with a time of 7:25 and were the fastest time of any of the 24 men’s novice fours of the day.

Johnson, Villaneda van Vloten and Manuel, then jumped in the Men’s Novice Eight and helped that boat to a bronze medal losing only to Emory and Georgia Tech with a time of 7:10.

But the racing was not over for Johnson and Manuel, who went straight from the eight to the men’s lightweight four with three (Alfredo Ortiz ’10, Jimmy Sharp ’10, and Allen Strickler ’10) of the varsity four men who had just finished their race. Lightweight men must average 155 lb, with no one being over 160 and the men weighed in 0.1 lbs under the limit. The Four fought hard all race but could not beat Emory whose racers were fresh finishing their first race of the day.
The varsity men’s four and varsity women’s four both placed out of their heats, 1st and second respectively to go to finals. The men’s four finished third overall of 17 boats with a time of 7:16 and the women finished 4th of 18 boats with a time of 8:35.

Other medalists of the day were the men’s novice four B who finished third with a time of 8:10.
WSU Rowing nows heads into two weeks of solid training before heading to Omaha, Nebraska for the Upper Midwest Championships.