Bob Ford | St. Joseph's women keep standards high

When it was over and the sky above the Schuylkill was suddenly clouded and the air smelled like rain, the members of the St. Joseph's women's heavyweight eight team tucked the silver medals around their necks inside their racing suits so the metal disks wouldn't bang against the boat. Then, in unison, as always, they lifted the sleek white shell from the water, turned it over and walked it steadily into a bay of the team's boathouse.

If it seemed like a practiced routine, something they do every day, that is because it is something they do just about that often. During the crew season, a bus from the athletic department picks them up on campus at 6:15 a.m. on weekdays and they bounce down City Avenue, cross the river, and are on the water by 6:30.

Every Monday is the same, and every Tuesday, and every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They put in the mileage, building their endurance, lowering their resting heart rates, piling up the experience necessary to compete.

"You have to train through the boredom," coach Gerry Quinlan would tell them.

It isn't a process for the weak-willed, but the sport of crew doesn't attract many of those, anyway. The rewards are mostly internal, the recognition is sporadic and the work is nearly back-breaking, literally.

"I can't imagine myself not rowing," said Liz Sauter, who rows in the stroke seat at the stern of the boat, the cadence of the coxswain in her face, the rest of the team following her lead. "I do it for the discipline . . . for the friends."

Sauter, from Cherry Hill, and two other women from South Jersey - Debbie Bateman from Longport, and Kaitlin Reehill from Egg Harbor - formed the engine at the back end of the boat. Bateman, in the seven seat, races lifeguard boats at Ventnor City in the summer. Reehill, the six seat, started rowing at Holy Spirit High.

Last year, the St. Joseph's women won the Evelyn Bergman trophy at the Dad Vail Regatta, the first gold medal in that event for the Hawks in the three-decade history of the women's heavyweight eight race.

That set a high standard for this season, and the work didn't get easier when Quinlan's team lost two rowers to injuries and the boat got a lot younger. It is a talented group, but one that contains no seniors, four juniors, three sophomores (including coxswain Kristen Bonnici) and two freshmen.