The St. Lawrence University men's rowing team finished with both entries in the novice race taking spots among the top four finishers with a second and fourth place finish Saturday at the Head of the Genesee Regatta in Rochester.

The top novice entry finished second with a time of 17:47.00 and the second entry for the Saints captured fourth place crossing the finish line in 18:22.15. RIT won the race and Ithaca was third. The Saints finished ahead of Rochester, University of Buffalo, two boats from RIT and two boats from SUNY Geneseo in the final standings.

In the varsity competition, the St. Lawrence boats captured sixth and eighth place in the 18-boat race. The top entry for the Saints likely would have finished much better but was clipped by Cleveland State causing the Saints to come to a complete stop. Cleveland State was disqualified from the race and the St. Lawrence boat recovered for the sixth place finish. The second entry for the Saints was the second fastest B entry in the varsity race.  

"It's too bad that the varsity men were interfered with… I thought we had a good shot of a medal and given our results from the previous week it really looked promising," said head coach George Repicky. "Unfortunately having to stop, clashing oars, and not being able to take the good line cost them significantly. But such is fall racing… we know where we're at and we'll continuing working hard."

The lineups for the novice boats included coxswain Janis Broder and rowers John Laser, Tristan McCutcheon, Randall Hooper, Troy Browse, Brian McCauley, Jessie Meyer, Nathan Long, Christian Eveleigh in the first boat and coxswain Madison Sorel and rowers Chris Emmet, Thomas Talbot, Ian Erlichman, Daniel Rogers, Robert Wehner, Joseph Burchenal, Oscar Wilkerson, Thomas Jones in the second entry for St. Lawrence.

The top varsity boat had a crew of Elisabeth Bartkus (coxswain), Tyler Frame, Bernardo Moreno, Jeremy Sylvain, Palchen Wangchuk, Jackson Leahy, Matthew Rostkowski, David Kunin, Henry Sandiford. The second boat included coxswain Vina Smith and rowers Alexander McKenna, Nathaniel Boechat, Tristan Anderson, Gregor Petakovic, Parker Phipps, Greg Blasz, Dylan Hemsted, Erik Werner.

"Great to see the success of both novice teams this weekend," said Repicky. "We've got a real talented bunch on both sides.  I think having tanks has also made a huge difference.  Day one on the water was like the end of week two and many of them have taken the opportunity to work with coaches on campus in the tanks outside of practice."

The Saints will race next at the Head of the Charles Regatta Oct. 22 in Cambridge, Mass.