The Abraham Lincoln High School dragonboat team was unable to keep first place this past season, as they gave up first to the Community Youth Center (CYC) dragonboat team, which includes some Lincoln students. The dragonboat team practices three times a week, Mondays and Wednesdays after school until 6:30 p.m. and on Saturdays from 12 to 3 p.m. The team continues to work hard while helping those who are not catching on as quickly as the rest.

The team consists of about sixty people on three boats – the gold boat is the first team, the red boat is the second team, and the black boat is the third team. The boats are ten rows long and fit two people per row. During practices, if someone isn’t rowing properly, everyone on the team will try to help that person correct their mistake.

Captains Casey Chow and Jessica Lui are the co-captains of the team.

“When we lost to CYC, I didn’t feel that just one person let the team down, but the whole team let themselves down; we win as a team and lose as a team,” said Chow, who rows for the gold boat.

Most rowers on the team feel that working harder is the simple answer.

“The team can come out ahead of CYC if they can work harder,” senior Ben Valasco, also a gold boat rower said. “Even though many of the previous team members have left the team, I think that the team [just needs to make] team work our number one priority.”

With new head coach Brian Yee leading the team, Yee plans for next season to be much better. Most of the dragonboat team feels that it is no different than before.

To get the dragonboat team into shape, they practice exercises and drills. They run the half-mile, complete multiple sit-ups, and perform many push-ups. One of the drills that the team does is called the tire pull. This is what it is: they tie a tire to the boat, get into the boats, and row (with the tire) back and forth.

In order for the team to be strong and have all of their needed paddle gear, they raise money through fundraisers, such as car washes and See’s Candies sales. They also do volunteer work, like at the Nike Marathon where they pass out water to the runners.

With most of last year’s main power members gone, Lincoln must build up a strong team and row their hardest to get back to first place. With a new season still ahead of them, they must practice hard and help the inexperienced members grow into strong rowers.

The dragonboat team is looking forward to a more productive year and will, hopefully, dominate the sport once again.