PELHAM, NY (February 11, 2012) -- A handful of rowers from the Vassar College women's rowing team made an impromptu trip to the St Valentine's Day Massacre Indoor Rowing “Ergatta” to test their fitness and training against some of their top competitors in the upcoming season. 

The Massacre, an indoor race hosted by the New York Athletic Club, offered an opportunity for many local rowers to showcase their hard work in the tedious indoor portion of the season. Vassar Women's Rowing was represented by just a few of their varsity members at the event. Seniors Jessi Panico and Hannah Siebens were joined by sophomore Mary Claire Walker in the event, a 2000-meter race pitting rowers from Manhattan College, NYU Rowing, and Sarah Lawrence.

Both Siebens and Walker competed in the Women's Collegiate Openweight 2000-meter event. With a commanding presence, Siebens won the event with a time of 7:15.2, an amazing 13 seconds ahead of her next fastest competitor.  Walker also showed herself to be a strong competitor, ending the event just edged out of third place, with a 4th place finishing time of 7:42.3.

Siebens was not only acknowledged for having won her event, but also took home the award for being the fastest female competitor of the event.

In the Women's Coxswain 1000-meter event, Panico fought herself to a strong 5th place finish with a time of 4:18.5, half a second ahead of last year's winning time.  As an open category event, Panico found herself racing against SONO Rowing, Evergreen, and several other teams outside of the collegiate category.

Vassar women's rowing is excited to represent their hard work at the upcoming Ergathon in College Center on Feb 16th and 17th.  They plan on using this excitement to fuel their momentum into the spring season.