The 2024 Ithaca College men’s rowing season brought monumental history for the program as the crew took home its first ever Liberty League Championship Tournament win. After coming down from that high, the team is focused on getting back and taking up even more room in their growing trophy case. 

The 2025 squad is coming into the spring season with significant firepower from last year’s championship-winning squad still remaining. The team is returning seven members of its Spring 2024 varsity eight including 2024 second team All-American senior Riley Maynard, sophomore Max Detzer, senior coxswain Miles Kenaston and junior Bryce Williston. 

Even though many returners have championship experience, the team reloaded with new recruits. First-year students Brennen Mone, Andrew Cheely and Liam Baker earned spots on the varsity eight boat during the three races in the fall rowing season. With a mix of proven veterans and ascending underclassmen, Williston said the shift in team dynamic is exactly what the crew needs to exceed the high bar set last year. 

“We have a young group, but it’s different because there used to be the old ways and now it’s like there’s more energy and it’s a younger group,” Williston said. “Just molding that into being like, ‘Hey, we’re fast, we got a whole bunch of power and a bunch of energy, let’s bring it towards our goal.’”

While the team was able to race on the water three times in the fall, the winter conditions in Ithaca have prevented the team from practicing on the lake so far this spring. With under 40 days until the Cayuga Duals on March 29, the team has been hitting indoor training in different ways to stay fresh. Williston said that over the break the captains employed a points system to keep the team motivated. Williston said the team was split into three squads that would compete for the most distance. 

“It was really competitive because we had guys that were doing two to three workouts a day working really hard,” Williston said. “That just inspires everyone to continue to work hard, like, ‘Riley got me by 1,000 meters today, tomorrow I’m going to get him by 3,000 meters’ and just continue to get everyone better.”

With the team coming off of a historic season in just head coach Justin Stangel’s second season at the helm, Stangel said it’s important that the team looks down the path and does not dwell on the last mountain top. 

“I think it’s easy to be complacent and think that like, ‘What I did last year is going to be enough to do it again this year,’” Stangel said. “I think if you start to get down that road, you’re going to be sorely mistaken. … Having people come back that have won the race, from a mental fortitude standpoint, it’s like ‘Okay, we’ve broken through that wall, now let’s continue to push and see where we can take it.’”

With Stangel entering his third season and the majority of the team having been with him for their entire careers, he is finding different ways to motivate the team. Detzer said Stangel has looked to improve on last season’s faults in an effort to get the team to that national championship caliber.

“[Stangel] is really taking a headstrong and aggressive approach to the season,” Detzer said. “He’s been showing us his own race clips from when he was rowing professionally and that’s been a big help to watch him as well as all of his other teammates rowing at the highest level. ”

Along with captains Williston, Maynard and senior Caleb Grassi, Stangel is employing leadership captains for each class and said everyone is unique in their leadership style. Baker and Cheely are leading the first-years, sophomore Rhys Pellaton is leading the sophomores and senior Sami Smith and Williston are leading the juniors.  

This season the team will face Division l and lll teams at the Knecht Cup Regatta on April 12-13 and Williams College on April 5, whose varsity eight finished with a silver at last spring’s Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship. Stangel said these challenges are key to making the team its very best.

“I think the Liberty League is getting faster and I think it should be a two-bid league at some point,” Stangel said. “We’re going to have to race these outside-of-conference teams to get ourselves in a position or someone else in our league, to give them a shot at earning that at-large bid.”

For the Bombers, there is one dream and Williston said the team is laser focused on making it a reality.

“In the Boat House we have a count of how many days we have left till Liberty Leagues, that’s the number one goal; Get to Liberty Leagues, repeat, make program history again,” Williston said. “Then from there, hit IRAs, make it to the grand final, cause we didn’t make it to the grand final last year. Then go as hard as we possibly can and go for that national championship.”