Hall of Fame
The 2016 Blue Crew team, led by Coaches Tessa Spillane, Hannah Woodruff and Seth Hussey, earned the first National Championship and first NCAA team National Championship in school history. The NCAA team included Meg Babikian '18, Emilia Ball '19, Kathryn Barth '17, Lauren N. Bazley '18, Kelsey Campbell '18, Sydney Dollmeyer '16, Olivia Duggan '17, Audrey Ellis '18, Anna Hakes '17, Grace Howland '16, Molly Hoyer '18, Sahar Ibrahim '16, Stephanie S. Kim '18, Katie Livingston '19, Loren Lock '16, Jocelyn Reahl '19, Sloane Rice '18, Megan Roberts '16, Sydney Stento '18, Olivia Sukrieh née Thayer '16 and Alessandra Zaldivar-Giuffredi '16. The team finished with a gold medal in the Varsity Eight Grand Final and a silver medal in the Second Varsity Eight Grand Final at the NCAA Championship. The squad won a sixth straight NEWMAC title and the New England Rowing Championships (NERC) championship (won second varsity and novice titles to earn overall points championship for first time in program history). Loren Lock '16 and Sydney Dollmeyer '16 earned All-America recognition, with Lock becoming the second athlete in program history to earn All-America honors a second time. The Blue also swept the awards at the NEWMAC Championships, as Megan Roberts '16 was named Rower of the Year and Stephanie S. Kim '18 earned her second Coxswain of the Year Award in as many seasons. The duo was joined on the All-Conference team by Lauren Bazley '18 and Grace Howland '16. In addition, head coach Tessa Spillane was recognized as the NEWMAC and National Invitational Rowing Championship (NIRC) and Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) National Coach of the Year.
Olivia Duggan '17:
If there was ever a team that had free speed, it was 2016 Blue Crew. In rowing, "free speed" refers to anything that helps a boat go faster without increasing physical output. For Blue Crew, we took that definition to mean anything and everything. Dress-up days ranging from Avatar: The Last Airbender characters to breakfast foods? Free speed. Fitting 18 people around a single table for post-practice breakfast in Pom Dining Hall? Free speed. Our coxswain Ale yelling, “There are no rules!”, a quote borrowed from a Little Caesars Pizza commercial that, without fail, resulted in our boat gaining seats on every other boat at the 1000 m mark of a race? Definitely free speed. But for as goofy and lighthearted as our team could be, we brought an equal intensity and rigor to every practice, secondary, race, and minute of preparation that went into them. That combination—our ability to deep belly laugh as hard as we went on the erg, all while relentlessly pushing one another—created a sense of belief that carried us through the season and, ultimately, to Wellesley's first national championship. We came into NCAAs ranked sixth in the field and in entirely new lineups from where we had last competed. On paper, there were plenty of reasons to doubt us. But when we arrived in California, I think we all knew we were going to do something that nobody saw coming. That perfect harmony of belief, hard work, and genuine fun is incredibly rare, and is something I'll be lucky if I ever experience again. To be honored for that moment in time, and for all the free speed, grit, laughter, and belief that got us there, is truly special.
Audrey Ellis '18:
My four years on the Wellesley rowing team are, to this day, one of my most cherished accomplishments. Blue Crew taught me things that no classroom could. It showed me how to work hard for something I love, it taught me to show up even when I was tired beyond what I thought possible, but more than anything it taught me the power of a team. My standard for how a team should work together — how people should push each other, trust each other, and show up for each other — will always be measured against Wellesley crew. I've chased that same feeling in every job, every project, every group I've been part of since, and I don't think I'll ever stop. Being inducted into the Wellesley Athletics Hall of Fame for my time with this team means more to me than I can fully put into words. It's a recognition not just of four years of early mornings and hard racing, but of everything crew gave me: resilience, humility, and an enduring belief in what people can accomplish together. I am deeply grateful to Wellesley, to my coaches, and to my teammates. Go Blue!
Molly Hoyer '18:
When I wrote my college essay, I highlighted my two strengths that I thought were most important at that time: adaptability and independence. Then I actually arrived at Wellesley, and I joined the rowing team as a novice, and I learned that beyond adaptability lies resiliency. In the erg room, in the gym, and especially in the boat, I discovered my limits -- and then I surpassed them. Day after day, with the help of my coaches and alongside my teammates (who were often tougher on me than the coaches!), I realized that "ordinary" is a mindset, not an objective, external category. After our first few sessions in the weight room, my fellow novice Meg clicked her tongue, shook her head, and told me, "Molly, you can definitely lift heavier weights than that." She was right, so I began trying heavier and heavier weights, and it became my new ordinary. At the start of my first winter training, the entire team sat down together with our coaches to go over our goals for the winter and spring seasons. Everyone agreed that one of those goals was, of course, to qualify for NCAAs, so that became my new ordinary. At my first NCAAs that following May, after I had pushed harder than I thought possible during the repechage to qualify for the Grand Final, I told our captain Loren that we must have done too much in the warm-up, because only halfway through the race, my legs had felt more exhausted than they ever had before. She looked me in the eyes and said, "Molly, that's how it's always supposed to feel. Every race." And then that became my new ordinary. Earning Wellesley's first team NCAA championship seems extraordinary, and being inducted into my alma mater's Athletics Hall of Fame feels like an extraordinary honor in return. But we won in 2016 because we knew, beyond a doubt, that what seemed extraordinary at first could be ordinary for us, if that's what we decided. And this recognition, to me, honors the people -- the teams, the coaches, the athletes -- who made that decision, who had the resilience to redefine "ordinary" and "extraordinary" for themselves. The highest honor, to me, is being inducted as part of my team, because I know that I could not be, could never have been, counted among this larger cohort of the Wellesley Athletics Hall of Fame without having been a part of Wellesley Crew.
Jocelyn Reahl '19:
During a period in my life when I felt so sure of who I was and what I was supposed to do, Wellesley gave me the space to grow outside of that narrow box I had defined for myself. Wellesley Crew, especially this Hall of Fame class, was critical to that growth. They showed me endless grace and kindness during my first year and beyond, and I cannot imagine who I would be without them. I am so grateful to be honored in this year’s Hall of Fame alongside them—I would not want it any other way.
