ERIE, Pa. -- Mercyhurst College rowing alumni Brandon Boyd and Kurtis Boyd have been named the Canadian Male Sweep Crew of the Year, as announced at the Rowing Canada awards banquet.
The Brockville men's lightweight four of Eric Van Vliet, Stu Taylor and the Boyd brothers won both the senior men's lightweight and heavyweight at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta. The crew's coach, Chris Marshall, is a 1988 graduate of Mercyhurst College.
B. Boyd, a 2007 graduate, and K. Boyd, a 2009 graduate, both recently represented the Lakers at the Royal Henley Regatta. There, Mercyhurst was one of two crews from a field of 16 from all over the world that raced in the finals for Visitors Challenge Cup -- a division that is for club and university crews below The Stewards' Challenge Cup standard.
Below is full text of the article by Ron Smith, sports editor of The Recorder & Times. To view the online edition, please click here.
Brockview Crew Finest in Land
by Ron Smith
The Recorder & Times
It was a history-making win at the time and one that officials from Rowing Canada recognized.
The Brockville men's lightweight four of Eric Van Vliet, Stu Taylor, Brandon Boyd and Kurtis Boyd was named the Canadian Male Sweep Crew of the Year at the Rowing Canada awards banquet in Vancouver recently.
Along with winning the senior men's lightweight four at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta in St. Catharines last summer, the crew stunned everyone by also winning the senior men's heavyweight four.
Rowing against crews who were much bigger and heavier, the underdog Brockville lightweights won the 2,000-metre race in a time of six minutes, 3.75 seconds. That was four seconds faster than the favoured American crew from Madison, Wisconsin.
It's the first time for Brockville to win a Rowing Canada crew award since the 1989 junior women's lightweight four of Patty Marshall, Kerry Sturla, Amy Hughes and Sarah Hamilton won one, said Brockville rowing coach Chris Marshall.
"That was an outstanding Henley performance. That was a pretty dominating performance. They were very much a deserving crew," said Marshall of the honour for the men's crew. "For our guys to be given this award, it's a tremendous accomplishment."
At that same Henley, the Boyd brothers won the senior men's lightweight pair while Van Vliet and Taylor captured gold in the under-23 men's lightweight pair.
"It's pretty amazing. I never thought we'd get something like that," said Kurtis Boyd.
It's not as if the crew had the chance to row together for a long time prior to the Henley regatta. With the Boyd brothers returning from the Henley regatta in England with a silver medal, they were put together with Van Vliet and Taylor just three weeks before the Canadian Henley competition.
Marshall figured that putting two successful crews together could be a formula for a fast boat.
"We didn't have a lot of time before the Royal Henley when we did that," said Boyd of combining the two crews for practices. "You could feel every row getting better and better."
At the Ontario championships, the crew won the lightweight four but lost the heavyweight final to a St. Catharines boat.
At workouts between the Ontario championship and Henley, Boyd could feel the boat getting faster as the four learned how to row together.
At Henley, other rowing club officials didn't give the Brockville crew much of a chance in the senior final.
Rowers in other crews were six-foot-six to six-foot-eight and Marshall joked the Brockville crew could have put their boat on their shoulders and walked underneath their competition.
"They were enormous. But, you still have to move the mass," said Marshall.
All of the Brockville rowers were less than six feet in height. But the Boyds, Van Vliet and Taylor had been rowing against bigger guys most of their rowing careers. They weren't likely to be intimidated by the size of their opposition, commented Marshall.
"I've always been racing against bigger guys all my life," agreed Boyd. "I don't look at it that much different. Hopefully, you can just make your boat go faster than the bigger guys. That's the main thing and that's all that we were concentrating on in our boat."
After the race, other coaches were actually running over to the Brockville coaches and rowers to congratulate them for their stunning accomplishment.
Marshall was happy for this crew to have won the race and the Rowing Canada award.
"They went to Henley and got the job done. It was a real crowning jewel and I couldn't be happier," said Marshall.
The four were also great role models for younger rowers at the BRC, who saw them arriving early for stretching routines prior to practice. The older rowers were also more than willing to help out the younger kids, reinforcing the club's older coaches' advice, praised Marshall.
The Boyd brothers have graduated from Mercyhurst College and are deciding on what lies ahead in their future.
Van Vliet is attending the University of Western Ontario while Taylor is on a scholarship to Harvard University.
sportseditor@recorder.ca
