After months of preparation, Tufts crew teams begin new season at home

It has been about five months since the Tufts men's and women's crew teams have taken part in any competition, as their fall seasons ended in late October.The teams will kick off their spring seasons this weekend, with both hosting regattas on the Malden River in Medford, Mass.

The weekend will feature action on Saturday and Sunday for both the men and the women.The men's team will host Coast Guard, Middlebury and Williams on Saturday.The regatta will feature what the rowers call a "double dual," in which the teams compete in a round-robin tournament — the winner is determined by which team has the most victories by the end of the competition.

The following day, Amherst and UMass will challenge Tufts' rowers on the Malden River. Sunday will be a more typical regatta, with each team racing twice against the other two schools.

The men's team is coming off a fall season during which it participated in four regattas — one of which was the Head of the Charles, perhaps the world's most famous crew event. Racing in the men's collegiate eight on the Charles River, the Jumbos' boat placed 35th with an adjusted time of 16:06 (the team was penalized one minute for knocking oars with another boat).

All-in-all, the Jumbos had a fairly successful fall season. Senior co-captain Andrew MacMillen was a large part of that success. The Hillsborough, Calif. native has been a captain of the team since his junior year.

At the Head of the Fish on Oct. 28, the last regatta of the season, Macmillan finished second in the men's single scull, giving the Jumbos their third straight top-three finish in that event.At the Green Mountain Head on Oct. 1, MacMillen finished in fifth place in the men's single scull and second place in the men's double.

According to MacMillen, despite the success he's had so far, the spring season serves as a fresh start for the team after a long winter of training.

"The two seasons are pretty distinct," MacMillen said. "From Halloween until President's Day, we were blacked out from having any coaching, so the seasons are their own separate bodies of work. Which I like, actually — it's nice to be able to reset over the course of the winter and not have to think about anything you didn't like from the fall."

MacMillen will be co-captaining the team this year alongside senior Tyler Hagedorn and junior Isaac Mudge.MacMillen and Hagedorn, as well as the team's three other seniors, will be entering their final rowing season with the Jumbos.

"I'm both excited for and dreading this season," MacMillen said. "I'm excited because, in my experience, every season has been better than the last. I'm hoping for the best season we've had so far. But it is my last season. I really don't want [my collegiate rowing career] to end just yet."

The women's team will have an opening weekend that nearly mirrors that of its male counterpart. Tufts will host Coast Guard, Middlebury and Trinity on Saturday before facing off against Amherst and Smith on Sunday.All of the competition for the weekend will take place on the Malden River.

The women also sent rowers to the Head of the Charles in October.The Jumbos' boat placed 11th out of 26 teams in the women's collegiate eights. Tufts finished seven seconds behind 10th-place Hamilton and three seconds ahead of 12th-place William Smith.

The co-captains for the Jumbos this year will be seniors Emma Conroy and Annelise Ryan, as well as junior Libby Lichter.Conroy was the junior captain for the squad last year.

Like the men's team, women's crew put in several months of offseason training this winter. Lichter believes that her team trains very intelligently, noting that instead of using heart rate as a measure of exercise (as most schools do), the players use the lactic acid content of their blood. The Weston, Mass. native commented further on her team's brand of 'smart' training.

"In a lot of programs, they have the mentality of 'more is more,' meaning that more minutes at more power must be better," Lichter said. "But we've found that isn't necessarily the case — that it's not necessarily about training as hard as you can for as long as you can, but rather training as intelligently as you can with the amount of time that you have."

The Jumbos are hoping their training regimen will give them an edge going into the spring season, which begins on Saturday at 9 a.m. for both teams.