This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
05/08/2013 12:00 AMThe Branford sailing team completed its season with a busy slate last week and came away with three victories, giving Head Coach Kirsten Murray and her 11 athletes a positive feeling about the way the spring unfolded. The Hornets won three races in a best-of-5 series for a 3-1 victory at Greenwich Academy, took a 2-0 defeat to Xavier in a best-of-3, split a home tri-meet by defeating Hand 2-0 and losing to Choate 2-1, then won at Sound School 2-0 on May 2.
"It was a successful season," said Murray, a program alum who completed her fourth year as coach. "We lost a lot of seniors from last year and had two new skippers, but the kids worked hard and had some really good team races."
Following the graduation of last season's skippers, the task of steering the Hornets' boats shifted to senior captain Lillian Brown, junior Nate Barton, and sophomore Haley Brown. They were joined on the squad by eight crew members in seniors Bailey Fryer and Pat Day, junior Kergen Schoenherr, sophomores Trinity Fryer and Sasha Shpitainik, along with freshmen Alena Bianchi, Cassandra Collins, and Lily Kirby. The duties of the crew involve controlling the sails, the handling of the boat, looking for wind shifts, keeping an eye on the positions of the opposition's boats, and communicating what transpires with all of these things to the skippers.
Coach Murray credited all three skippers for displaying savvy strategy during competition and also feels her Hornets have developed strong chemistry by virtue of her veteran sailors schooling the underclass athletes in the sport's finer points.
"Our team gets along exceptionally well as everyone works together and helps each other," Murray said. "Our experienced sailors teach the less experienced kids skills both on the land and in the water, such as how to rig the boat or how to fix something if it breaks. Everyone is included and this creates good overall team chemistry."
A lot of responsibility for forming these strong bonds rests on senior captain Lillian Brown, who is pleased with how things developed for her squad this spring in terms of both victories and the vibe.
"I was proud of how we did. We were able to get wins against schools we haven't beaten in the past and I was really happy with that," said Brown. "I love the atmosphere on this team. With only 11 of us, we get to know each other well and that's really special. It's been an absolutely fun experience, whether we're practicing or competing and whether we win or lose."
Fellow skipper Barton echoes many of Brown's sentiments.
"The season went very well. We had three new freshmen on the team and I was impressed with their performance," he said. "I've never been on a team that was so tight-knit. We get everyone involved and the upperclassmen take the underclassmen under their wing and teach them how to improve their technique and tactics."
Barton added that last week's 2-1 loss to Choate was a "hard-fought race that was the best team race I've seen us have all year." Two weeks ago, Branford had a great race by avenging a prior road loss to Williams by prevailing on the Hornets' home course of Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, a victory Coach Murray called the club's biggest of the season.
In terms of the direction in which her program is heading, Murray feels optimistic the Hornets will be a varsity program for years to come and said any Branford student is welcome to join the program, regardless of how much prior sailing experience they have.
"I see the program continuing to compete at the varsity level and we obviously want to encourage new people to join," Murray said. "Having experience is a benefit, but our kids are really good about teaching new people and it's really not that hard to pick up if you have a little patience."