The Brock Badgers rowing team continued their strong start to the season on Saturday, winning two gold medals at the Head of the Trent Regatta, in Peterborough.

Known as the largest single day regatta in North America, Head of the Trent provides a challenging course often mixed with poor weather. Today was no exception, as a combination of rain and a strong tailwind made for tricky racing conditions.

The Badgers were well represented in small boats, with four singles and five doubles being raced. Zachary Koroll started the day off for Brock finishing 9th in the Club Single, and shortly after Luc Brodeur finished 5th in the University Heavyweight Single. In the Women's' Lightweight Single Katherine Walker came 4th, while in the Heavyweight Single Stephanie Mowder came second, just 17 seconds behind first place Western University. Two crews entered the University Heavyweight Men's' Double, producing a second and sixth place finish. Both Lightweight Men's and Women's boats finished seventh in their event, while the Heavyweight Women's' Double finished eighth.

Winning the Badgers first gold medal of the day was the Heavyweight Men's Coxed Four of David de Groote, Matt Finley, Will Bryden, Matt Wortley, and Earl Cabaluna. The crew finished the race in 15:51, beating Western University by seven seconds. Just missing gold was the Lightweight Men's Coxed Four, coming second to Western by five seconds. The two crews were at it again later in the day, as they combined to form part of the heavyweight and lightweight boats that each came second. There were two Junior Varsity 8+'s racing as well. Competing in the Club 8 event, one boat finished third while the other was disqualified.

It was a successful day for the women's program as well. Winning Brock's second gold of the day was the Lightweight Coxed 4 of Emma Sheehan, Katherine Walker, Jen Beaudette, Lindsay MacLean, and Laura Court. They finished the course in a time of 18:09, beating second place Queen's. The time would have also been fast enough to win the Heavyweight Women's Coxed 4. In that event, Brock narrowly missed second place, coming third behind Queen's by .3 of a second. The Lightweight Women's 8+, with only one returning athlete in the boat, finished fourth in their event.

In their second regatta of the season, the Brock Novice team showed improvement on their way to good performances. The Men's 8+ finished second, while Women's 8+'s finished 8th and 14th.

Brock will be in action this upcoming Saturday in their first home regatta of the season, the Brock Invitational.

For full results, visit http://hotr.ca/results/

By Will Bryden