The Brown women’s crew team dominated at the Ivy Invitationals this weekend in a regatta that saw the team walk away with victories in 10 of 12 events. With this commanding performance, the Bears now rank fifth in the Pocock Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association Poll for the first time this season, asserting themselves as one of the best Division I rowing programs in the country.
“After our races this weekend at the Ivy Invite, the team is feeling a mix of excitement and motivation,” Kayden Obsitnik ’24 wrote in a message to The Herald. “Seeing the tangible results of our dedication and hard work has been incredibly fulfilling for all of us. We’re all excited to keep the momentum going over the coming weeks as we face new competitors and challenges.”
Despite the commanding win totals, the team got off to a rough start in the tournament, which was hosted by Princeton. Against a backdrop of light rain and gray skies on Friday, the Third Varsity squad finished under three seconds behind first-place No. 10 Penn, while the Fourth Varsity boat, racing in the same event, trailed by more than 20 seconds.
But Bruno would win by the largest margin of the day just minutes later. Led by coxswain Caitlyn Roddy ’26, the B4 rocketed off the starting line to build a boat-length lead over all other shells less than 200 meters into the 2,000-meter race. The team cruised to the finish line with a time of 7:18.227, a comfortable 24 seconds ahead of second-place No. 15 Rutgers.
“We had a good series of races on (the) first day of the Ivy Invitationals,” Coach John Murphy said in an interview with Brown Athletics. “Leading up to this race the team has been training hard, and we definitely saw progress since racing (on Lake Carnegie) two weeks ago,” he noted, referring to an invitational at Princeton at which Brown only clinched one event.
The A4 and Second Varsity teams fed off the momentum generated by B4, as both crews rowed to a 10-second advantage over Penn and USC in their respective events.
In the final event of the first day, the First Varsity Eight narrowly beat out Penn by 2.4 seconds for first, posting a time of 6:14.873. Keanan Clarke, an ESPN+ broadcast commentator who covers Ivy League rowing, said “you often see Brown, certainly in the finishing stages of a race, (register) 40-41 strokes per minute” to outpace opponents at the end of every race.
Penn tried to replicate this strategy with little success. Trailing in the final 500 meters, they surged forward in a final attempt to bridge the gap, but Bruno had deliberately conserved energy throughout the race to prevent the upset.
“In tight races, the ability to make strategic decisions on the fly is important,” wrote Obsitnik, the coxswain for the First Varsity squad. “As a coxswain, I need to be highly attuned to not only our own performance, but also the tactical changes and momentum shifts of competing boats.”
Brown would continue the win streak on Saturday, only succumbing once in a head-to-head D4 matchup against Rutgers.
The most exciting race of the day featured the C4 shell, rowed by freshman oarswomen Ava Lewis ’26, Ellie Graham ’27, Ella Bogue ’27 and Calissa Snyder Cox ’27, with Fiona Daly ’27 as coxswain. The team stayed neck-and-neck with Rutgers for the entire 2000 meters, inching across the finish line a second ahead.
It’s “exciting for a coach (during) that first race and seeing who of the new freshmen really thrives on competition,” Murphy wrote in a message to The Herald. “You can instill mental toughness in these individuals, help them face challenges and help them reach their goals and be successful.”
Next weekend, the women’s crew team will venture into unfamiliar territory to compete at the Big 10 Invitational in Sarasota, Florida.
“It’s a great opportunity to test our speed against some of the top rowing programs outside the Ivy League,” Obsitnik wrote.
