By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – The concept is simple enough: From the start of every rowing race, keep your boat on a straight line. Power through 2,000 meters down the water. Get to the finish as fast as you can.
 
Simple enough.
 
Except for Jennifer Hoag, whose college rowing path has been anything but a straight line.

 

Her Seattle Pacific career started with a trip to the NCAA national regatta in 2019. Then got interrupted by the coronavirus in 2020. Then got gut-punched when the team was not selected for the downsized 2021 nationals, despite a No. 2 national ranking.

But now, in 2022, the Falcons are back in the NCAAs. Hoag, after spending much of the spring with the varsity four, is back in the eight-oared shell.
 
A straight line?
 
For this highly motivated, hard-working SPU senior, it's more like coming full circle.
 
"This season has truly been a roller coaster – and my whole four years," said Hoag, who grew up doing a lot of sailing with her family, but had never rowed a stroke before arriving to the shores of the Ship Canal in the late summer of 2018. "I'm thankful I've had the opportunity to grow.
 
"I always say I shouldn't be where I'm at – I'm a short rower, I didn't row in high school, I'd never done the sport before," the diminutive 5-foot-5 Hoag added. "I've been able to push the threshold of potential."
 
Hoag and the Falcons will get to push that threshold again this weekend when they arrive inside Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, Florida, for the Division II nationals.

Preliminary heats are Friday morning, with Seattle Pacific paired up against Mercyhurst of Pennsylvania and three-time defending champion Central Oklahoma at 8:24 a.m. Pacific time. The second prelim heat at 8:36 a.m. features rival Western Washington, Embry-Riddle of Florida and Thomas Jefferson University of Philadelphia. 
 
The two heat winners automatically advance to Saturday's grand final. The remaining four boats row in afternoon repechage races, with the top two making the grand final and the other two going to the petite final. 
 
The varsity four prelims immediately follow the eights, with SPU's shell in the first of two heats. Again, the heat winners make the grand final; the other four row in the repechage for two spots in the grand and two in the petite.

"NCAAs is the final goal for every team, but we were just trying to make the most out of every competition," said Hoag, voted overwhelmingly by her fellow Falcons as this year's team captain.  "I've been talking with a bunch of alums and how much history we've been through and how much history we're bringing into this race,"
 
ROWING FROM SQUARE ONE
A native of Normandy Park, about 25 miles southwest of SPU, Hoag tried several different sports growing up, including soccer, basketball, even cross country.
 
But as she was preparing for college, competing in athletics was not part of her plan, until the thought of rowing just kind of popped into her mind.
 
Hoag sent an e-mail to then-Falcons coach Andy Derrick. He responded with an invitation to come try out for the team.
 
She had no idea what awaited her.
 
"It was 100 percent culture shock," Hoag said with a laugh. "He had me come in before the season started and I filled out all the paperwork. Then he had me come to their fall camp.
 
"So it's all the varsity members of the team, and me – a brand-new freshman who has never rowed before, and hadn't even started school yet. He sat me on an erg and taught me how to row, then we drove out to the lake and I got into a boat for the first time, with seven people who had rowed before."
 
She survived it, and even now says she eventually thrived because of that initial outing.
 
"That experience is probably what pushed me to become the rower I am today," Hoag said. "I spent the next couple of weeks training with the varsity. Then when the new group of freshmen came on the team, they went through the tryout process. I was already on the varsity squad and I was pushed up to a higher caliber earlier than most freshmen would be. Coach (Derrick) saw something in me."
 
A TASTE OF NATIONALS … THEN CAME COVID
When the 2019 spring season came around, Hoag split time between the varsity eight and varsity four. She was in the fours boat that factored into the Falcons earning an invitation to Indianapolis for the NCAA Division II Championships.
 
Once there, both the eight and the four came out of repechage heats to gain a spot in the grand final. Both finished fourth, and the Falcons took fourth overall among the six teams.

 

"Even before my freshman year, the team had tried so hard, but didn't get a bid (in 2018)," Hoag said. "I came on in 2019, and (the returning rowers) were saying, 'This is not going to happen again. We're making the NCAAs. We're going to go.'

And then we did make it, and I was excited, although I didn't realize the weight of the situation."
 
With that experience from Indy and with nearly everyone coming back, 2020 was looming large.
 
"That was the year Coach told us we were going to be on the (awards) podium," Hoag recalled.
 
But then the coronavirus came along just as the spring schedule was starting. In almost an instant, the season – and those grand plans – were gone. Shut down, along with everything else.
 
"We trained so hard for that to be taken away," Hoag said. "But it was taken away from everyone."
 
The SPU campus closed, and everyone was sent home, where classes would resume online. However, Hoag and the other rowers didn't leave empty-handed.
 
"Our coach sent us home with ergs," she said. "I was actually living with one of my teammates, and she couldn't go home during covid. So we offered up my home. We had two ergs, so we set them up on my parents' deck. Over the summer, we erged pretty frequently. It was nice to have an accountability partner."
 
RETURNING TO ACTION , BUT NOT TO THE NCAAs
Neither Hoag nor her teammates knew when they would get to train together again or compete again. By the end of summer 2020, however, they did know they would be training and competing with a new head coach, as Derrick accepted the head job at Gonzaga, and Caitlin McClain came aboard to take over the Falcons.
 
Change is always somewhat unsettling, but it's part of life, in or out of sports.
 
"There was a lot of uncertainty, but it's Coach's first year, and you've got to trust her," Hoag said. "The team isn't different, the group of girls and the way we row is the same, so we were confident."
 
The Falcons were in the national picture for the entirety of the 2021 season. They beat Western Washington four times, and went bow-to-bow with Central Oklahoma in both sessions of the Falcon Regatta. But UCO's overwhelming 21-second victory at the inaugural Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championship essentially knocked Seattle Pacific out of a bid for a trip to NCAAs.
 
Had it been the usual six-team field, the Falcons definitely would have made it. But with all spring sports nationals reduced in size because of the ongoing pandemic, rowing had just four slots available.
 
"We should have gone last year, absolutely," Hoag said. "I watched a video taken of us during the NCAA Selection Show, and the disappointment in our faces when we found out that we didn't get that bid … that pain," Hoag said, her voice trailing off.
 
WORKING HER WAY BACK TO THE EIGHT
Although SPU graduated some of its faster athletes, the shellhouse still had plenty of quality competitors inside, Hoag certainly among them.

 

But heading into 2022, her role changed. As a nursing major, her schedule sometimes conflicted with practice times. Since the occupant of the stroke seat is essentially rowing's version of a quarterback or point guard, the boat needed someone who could be there every day.

Hoag did what is called a "seat race." The way it works is, a rower and seven others go out and row what is essentially a 1,000-meter time trial. Their time is noted. Then another rower takes that same seat, goes out with the same seven for another 1,000-meter trial. The faster time keeps the seat.
 
"I lost my seat race," Hoag said. "I commend the other rower who did win that seat race – she rowed her heart out and proved she needed to be in that boat. That was emotionally hard, but the team comes first."
 
Hoag took the stroke seat in the varsity four boat. She kept her spirits up and her attitude positive, determined not only to work her way back into the eight, but to make the most of her time in the four.
 
"I really like being in that stroke seat and having a say over how the race goes and how the boat feels," she said. "Being a leader and being in charge is something I like doing, and I got to do that in the four with younger athletes behind me. I took that opportunity to make myself the best rower possible. I think being in the four made me a better rower."
 
McClain was clearly appreciative of how Hoag handled everything.
 
 

"It's one of those things you talk about in sport a lot, but not every athlete experiences it: the idea that you struggle and there's adversity. It's how you respond to it that matters," McClain said. "Using the word 'resilience' in the comments in the story about the NCAA announcement -- that came from her. She has been able to embrace that and promote that on the team.

"For her, what matters now is where we are, and she has been able to let go of some things and embrace others," McClain added. "Life is ultimately always going to be hard, but again, it's how you respond that matters. JJ has fully stepped into the roles she has had in both the varsity four and the varsity eight  – and obviously, both boats were integral to us making the NCAAs."
 
After a stretch of four big events – road trips to Central Oklahoma and Florida, the Falcon Regatta, and the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships – Hoag asked for another chance to seat race.
 
This time, she prevailed. Just two days before the Windermere Cup across town on the Montlake Cut, Hoag was back in the varsity eight stroke seat.
 
"We only had two days to prepare, and I'm a very different stroke seat," she said. "The girls behind me had been rowing the same way for four or five weeks. … I had to find a medium ground with the way I row and the way they were rowing."
 
Even with all of that, the Falcons, after finishing nine seconds behind Western Washington a week earlier at WIRA, finished within 4½ seconds of the Vikings at Windermere.
 
"We were so happy after that race – it felt good," Hoag said. "The atmosphere at Windermere is amazing. We did lose to Western, but we cut the margin in half, and that was the goal."
 
STRESS? HECK, NO – THIS IS FUN
Now, they had just one more week to prepare for the GNAC race, set for Dexter Lake in Eugene, Oregon, on May 14. Central Oklahoma certainly would be the favorite, but Western and Humboldt were to be taken every bit as seriously.
 
So what was their approach?
 
Relax.
 
"We just wanted to have fun. We went out early and did a little row-through of the course before the races even started, just to get the jitters out. It wasn't a hard row. Then we were sitting under the big tent, playing music and dancing and having a good time. It was just a fun atmosphere. No one was stressed about the results."
 
That's exactly the kind of approach SPU coach McClain has come to expect from her captain.
 
"She's always the first person to put music on and get people's energy up," McClain said. "She is so good about sensing the moment, like in a post-practice meeting, whether as a boat or as a team, she will just jump in with such words of wisdom and help bring people's focus to what's important."
 
In the GNAC varsity eight final, the Falcons were still getting their boat lined up for the race when a quick start command was given. They were behind everyone for the first 1,000 meters of the 2,000-meter race, then moved past Humboldt and eventually UCO with 500 meters left. They almost caught first-place Western, trailing by just one seat and 89 hundredths of a second at the finish line.
 
But SPU was almost two seconds ahead of Central Oklahoma.
 
"You would have thought we'd won the national championship," said Hoag, honored on May 20 as the GNAC Rower of the Year. "The girls were slapping the water and screaming. I don't think the younger girls realized that it was the first time we had beaten UCO. That was a truly incredible moment for us."
 




Now, it was a matter of waiting all weekend for the Selection Show on Monday, May 16. Had the Falcons done enough to make it?
 
"That was the longest day of my life, waiting for two o'clock," Hoag said. "To see the first few names pop up and especially Jefferson, we thought, 'That's not good for us.' Then I realized they were going alphabetically. We saw our name pop up, and we popped up out of our chairs."
 
So they're off to Sarasota. They're poised. They're ready to race. And once again …
 
… they're relaxed.
 
"We literally let go of all the worries and the stress," Hoag said. "When we get in a boat, we want to have fun. We're doing it all for each other and our team. No matter how we finish, we're going to be top six in the nation.
 
"We're underdogs," she added, noting that the five other teams will be going all-out every bit as hard as Seattle Pacific is. "But we're just going to out and we're going to chase them down."
 
For the Falcons, the path to doing that is a straight line.
 
For Jennifer Hoag, it's coming full circle.