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During the offseason winter workouts, Syracuse men’s rowing captains Finn Conlon and Reilly Eagan held a team contest. Using a point system, the competition focused on who could put in the most work from home over winter break.

“It fostered some healthy competition amongst the guys,” Eagan said. “If that day you’re sitting on the couch and feeling lazy, but then you check it and you’re like ‘this guy and that guy that I’m competing with for boats, they got an hour in today.’ You head down to your basement and you get an hour of work in.”

The rowers submitted their workouts to Conlon and Eagan, who sent out rankings so the team could see the standings. The added incentive of Syracuse gear for the winner attracted the majority of the team, Eagan said.

The competition aimed to encourage guys to workout separate from the team, and helped them stay focused for what the team expects will be a competitive season this spring, Eagan said.

After a preseason scrimmage with Colgate on April 1, the Orange head to Redwood Shores, California to open the season in the Pac 12 Challenge on April 8 and 9. They’ll face California, last year’s national champions, as well as Wisconsin and Northeastern.

Last season, the Orange were ranked No. 8 in the country, just outside of the top six seeds required to make the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Grand Finals. But in the semifinal, they placed 2nd overall ahead of No. 3 Brown and No. 4 Dartmouth, punching a ticket to the nation’s top event. In the Grand Final, Syracuse finished 5th, tying the best in head coach Dave Reischman’s tenure.

“In spring racing (2022) we surprised some people, especially in the national championship,” Eagan said.

He added that last season’s success showed the team it can compete among the country’s best, Eagan said. The Orange also return every rower from last year’s top boat that advanced to the Grand Final.

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“We don’t want to rest on our laurels,” Eagan said. “It was fun last year to be the surprise of the year to everybody but we don’t really want to be the feel good story for everybody, we want to keep moving up and really establish ourselves.”

During the long offseason training, the team has a shared mindset to improve one day at a time, Eagan said. The team cannot get too far ahead of themselves, Conlon said.

In the fall, Syracuse won the championship at the Head of the Charles, its best finish in program history. But the team cannot assume that it will have the same success this spring as it did last fall, Conlon said.

“Each day we were taking that day and that training session in mind and that resulted in the success (we achieved),” Eagan said.

The team’s last fall race came in early November when it competed at the Princeton Chase in New Jersey, finishing ahead of Princeton in both the varsity 8 three-mile chase and in the 4+ regatta.

After winter break, Syracuse went down to Florida for its annual, week-long spring training trip in January.

“It was exciting because so many guys have put in so much good work on their own, and it did show in Florida. That was exciting and encouraging,” Eagan said of the trip.

The captains noticed significant improvement from the freshmen and sophomores on the team in Florida and back in Syracuse this winter. A priority for Conlon and Eagan is to instill a “get it done” mentality through their work ethic. They believed their example rubbed off on the younger rowers.

“The younger guys have been very impressive with their work ethic and getting after it. They’re nipping at the heels of the older, more established guys on the team,” Eagan said.

Published on March 21, 2023 at 11:25 pm