The Kincaid Ospreys' varsity women's eight qualified for the national rowing regatta over the weekend, the program's first national qualifier in six years and a validation of a training overhaul coach Anna Delvecchio installed three seasons ago.
The boat finished second at the regional qualifying regatta, edging out a longtime conference rival by less than a second to secure the program’s first trip to nationals since before Delvecchio, now in her fourth season, took over the program. “That margin is basically nothing over a 2,000-meter course,” Delvecchio said. “But it’s the difference between a good season and a season this program will talk about for years.”
A training overhaul three years in the making
Delvecchio said the qualification is the direct result of a training model she installed when she arrived, shifting the program away from a schedule built primarily around fall head races and toward a year-round strength and conditioning plan modeled on programs from larger athletic conferences. Senior stroke seat Maya Lindqvist, who has rowed under Delvecchio for all four of her collegiate seasons, said the change was difficult at first. “Freshman year felt like training for a completely different sport than what I thought I was signing up for,” Lindqvist said. “It took most of that first year to trust that the extra winter lifting sessions and the technique video review were actually going to matter on race day. This weekend is when it finally clicked for everybody why we did all of it.”
Coxswain Jordan Ferris, a junior who has steered the varsity eight for two seasons, said the boat’s chemistry improved noticeably once the roster stabilized around the same eight rowers for a full year, something the program had struggled to do in past seasons because of graduation and injuries. “Rowing is one of those sports where changing even one seat changes the entire boat’s rhythm,” Ferris said. “Having the same eight people in the boat since last spring meant we walked into this weekend already knowing exactly how everyone else was going to respond under pressure.”
Rowing doesn’t get the attention basketball or baseball gets on this campus, and honestly most of the school probably doesn’t know we exist until a result like this one. That’s fine. We know what we did to get here.
Anna Delvecchio, Head Coach, Kincaid Ospreys Rowing
Training on a river shared with the city’s revival
The team trains on a stretch of the Kestrel River near the greenway, sharing the water most mornings with recreational cyclists and runners using the trail that connects Downtown Core to Foundry Row. Delvecchio said the increased foot traffic along the greenway in recent years, part of the city’s broader riverfront revival, has occasionally complicated early-morning launches but has also brought unexpected support. “We’ve had people jogging the trail stop and cheer us on during a hard piece more times than I can count,” she said. “It’s a strange kind of home-field advantage for a sport that doesn’t have fans in the traditional sense.”
Lindqvist said the team is aware it operates with a fraction of the resources available to some of the larger programs it will face at nationals, including schools with dedicated boathouse facilities and larger recruiting budgets. “We’re doing this out of a boathouse that’s smaller than some of these programs’ equipment closets,” she said. “Qualifying with what we have feels like it means more, honestly.”
Looking ahead to nationals
The varsity eight will have roughly three weeks to prepare before the national regatta, a window Delvecchio said the team will use to fine-tune technique rather than push additional conditioning volume, given how compressed the postseason schedule is. She said the program’s athletic department has approved travel funding for the full boat and coaching staff, addressing a concern she said she raised privately with Athletic Director Frank Alcott’s office after a smaller past qualification nearly went unfunded for a full travel roster. “They came through for us this time without us having to fight for it,” Delvecchio said. “That matters for a program our size.” Ferris said the boat’s goal at nationals is straightforward: finish in the top half of the field, a result that would mark the best national finish in program history.
Delvecchio said the qualification has already produced a modest bump in interest from prospective recruits, including several families who reached out to the program directly after seeing the regional results posted online. “We don’t have the recruiting budget to go find these families ourselves in most cases,” she said. “A result like this means some of them find us instead, which is a rare kind of leverage for a program our size.” She said the coaching staff is being careful not to overpromise to recruits about the program’s trajectory, noting that a single strong season does not guarantee sustained success in a sport where roster turnover from graduation can be significant.
Lindqvist, who will graduate after this season, said she has mixed feelings about the timing of the program’s breakthrough. “Part of me wishes this had happened two years ago so I’d have more time left to build on it,” she said. “But honestly, getting to be part of the group that finally broke through, after three years of training that didn’t always show results right away, might mean more to me than if it had happened earlier and felt less earned.” Delvecchio said she hopes Lindqvist’s class leaves behind a template the next group of rowers can simply inherit rather than have to rebuild from scratch. “The hardest part of any turnaround is doing it the first time,” she said. “Now we at least know what it looks like when it works.”