After months of training, the Trent Excalibur Men’s and Women’s Rowing teams landed at the Welland International Flatwater Centre in Welland, Ontario this weekend to take on the best in the country. The team of men and women arrived on Friday to unload the boats and prepare mentally for the competition. The boats would hit the water Saturday for time trials, which would determine which seeding for the final’s races on Sunday. The Excalibur team as a whole performed well, but as has been the case all Fall, it was the Men’s team that put the field on notice.

Trent had boats in 6 men’s races, and all of them qualified for their A Finals (top boats in the field), a feat that gave them the depth to potentially collect enough points for the National Banner. Sunday had the team excited to get going, and they knew they could set themselves up with a strong start in the Lightweight Men’s double (LM2x). The boat of Anders Fish (Antigonish, NS) and Wesley Penney (Kingston, ON) came through with a fantastic fourth place finish, which got everyone excited for a day that would culminate with the Heavyweight Men’s 8 (HM8). Abby Adair (Peterborough, ON), cox for the HM8, was keeping tabs on all of the results. “We knew that with a strong start to the day, and with a little luck, we could find ourselves in position to challenge for the banner at the end of the day”, said Adair. Continuing, Ms. Adair added “we have some very strong athletes in our Men’s program, and we wanted to give it our best shot.”

The next men’s boat up for the Excalibur featured National Team members Andrew Stewart-Jones (Chelsea, QC) and Graham Peeters (Omemee, ON), and saw them claim Gold in the Men’s Heavyweight Pair (M2-). They were followed by their National Program teammate Trevor Jones (Burleigh Falls, ON) who took Trent’s second Gold of the day in the Men’s Single (M1x), winning by a full boat length. The Men’s lightweight four of Fish and Penney alongside Dayton Kelly (Winchester, ON), Jordan Hamilton (Winnipeg, MB) and cox Hailey Guertin (Essex, ON) would keep the team in banner contention with a sixth place finish with their last two boats to come.

The last two boats were Alex Watson (Scarborough, ON) in the Lightweight Men’s Single (LM1x), and the Heavyweight Men’s 8 which featured Peeters, Jones, Stewart-Jones, Matt Seaby (Ottawa, ON), Mark Moyer (Scarborough, ON) and James Dyer (Ottawa, ON) alongside two Lightweight Men in Watson and Kelly, and was coxed by Abby Adair (Peterborough, ON) . Watson came through with a fantastic Gold medal victory, and the 8 would put together a very strong Bronze medal performance. In the end, the Excalibur came up just short of the banner, finishing just behind the University of British Columbia, but the team as a whole leave with their heads held high.