Orcas rowers hold their own

This year’s edition of the Orcas Rowing Club team did itself proud Nov. 10 at the Frostbite Regatta, at Greenlake in Seattle.

The club, which now boasts a whopping 23 team members, went up against 18 of the best rowing clubs from all along the west coast – California, Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska.

The Orcas kids competed in five races. Their finishes were:

• Women’s Open/Varsity Junior Fours, fourth place. Rowers Christina Cantwell, Molly Sisson, Terra Armstrong, and Carling Hayworth, plus cox Lilly Rider.

• Men’s Intermediate/JV fours, fourth place. Rowers Zack Robertson, Tyson Bernhardt, Dan Gilmore, and Jon Russell, plus cox Hannah Halliday.

• Men’s Open/Varsity Junior Fours, seventh place: Rowers Will Fritzberg, Jesse Anderson, Taurell Reboulet, and Nathan Capdeville, plus cox Ryder.

• Women’s Open Novice Fours, fourth place: Rowers Armstrong, Cassie McDowell, Kate Denning and Halliday, plus cox Hayworth.

• Women’s Intermediate/JV Junior Fours, seventh place. Rowers Cantwell, McDowell, Alison Graham and Hayworth, plus cox Halliday.

Rowing club members will resume their practices in January, on the cold waters of Cascade Lake.

But December continues to be a busy month for team members, who are spending the entire month raising money doing work parties and conducting a wood raffle, but these are mere preludes to the big fundraiser of the year, the annual Polar Bear Plunge at 11 a.m. Jan. 1 at Cascade Lake. This year’s New Year’s theme will be Soggy Super Heroes, according to coach Susan Aspinall, who says that crew members will be dressed as Batman, Superman, the Green Hornet and other heroes while jumping into the lake.

— Ted Grossman is Editor of islandssounder.com and The Islands’ Sounder. He can be reached at (360) 376-4500 or email.

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