ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The women and lightweight men performed well against stiff regional competition, at the Head of the Genesee on Saturday in Rochester. The Head of the Genesee is a unique regatta in that each boat's total time is a combination of the morning's three-mile head race time plus three times the afternoon's 1,500-meter sprint race time.

The women's open four of Laura Ebersbach, Jessica Garver, Erin Burns, Lydia Voorhees, and Breellen Plucknett finished the head race with a time of 21:18 to place fourth behind Radcliffe (Harvard's women). Unfortunately, the boat's course during the sprint portion of the race included a floating pile of leaves that got caught on the bow of the boat, causing a plume of water to shoot over the bow with each stroke. Their sprint time of 6:25 was enough for a fifth place finish. Their overall placement was fourth with a total time of 40:34, behind Radcliffe (Harvard).

The men's lightweight eights raced the head race separate from the collegiate eights, but were mixed in with the heavyweight eights for the sprint racing. The first lightweight eight of Brian Comey, Milos Veres, Xavier Alexander, Jonny Blazevic, Gary Loo, Michal Blazecjyzk, Robert Long, Sam Rouse, and Zack Pappas finished their head race with a time of 16:30.4 and completed the sprint race with a time of 4:42.1 for a total time of 30:36.7. This overall time was the fastest lightweight time and would have put the men in second place in the heavyweight event, behind Hobart College.

The second lightweight eight of Kevin McCarthy, Amel Younis, Blaze Kelly, Jake Lennon, Nick Wnek, Sam Sheridan, Juan Avila, Harrison Kieffer, and Doug Riethmuller finished their head race in 17:14.4 and raced the sprint race in 5:02.4 for a total time of 32.21.6. This was the second fastest lightweight time and would have put them fifth behind Ithaca College.

The third lightweight eight of Ryan Banisiewski, Mitch Fairer, Alex Walters, Dan Evangelista, Jason Huang, Nate Gervais, Damir Damirovic, Matt Haisch, and Nick Wirth finished their head race with a time of 18:23.2 in the heavyweight event. The sprint time of 5:04.3 gave the third eight a total time of 33:36 for an 11th place finish in the heavyweight event behind University of Rochester's second entry.

The women's eight of Allissa Porter, Leyla Dombrowski, Alexis Theuret, Pia Frascatore, Kate Moran, Lizzie Hook, Kate Castonguay, Maggie Switzer, and Mairead Manke rounded out the racing with a fifth place finish in the head race with a time of 19:16.6 behind Ithaca coupled with a fourth place finish in the sprint race with a time of 5:45.3 behind Rochester Institute of Technology. This resulted in a total time of 36:32.6 for fourth place behind RIT.

"It's always a great experience to come to Rochester for this race," said head coach Adrian Spracklen. "We've been putting in a lot of miles over the past several weeks and it's good to see how things are progressing against good competition. We still have a lot of work to do to achieve our goals, but we're certainly moving in the right direction."

Mercyhurst's next race will be the Head of the Occoquan in Virginia on Saturday, November 2.