It’s a four-hour drive to get from where Dan Berry used to be to where he is now.

‘From Philly,’ he said. ‘We were coming up to Syracuse.’

He couldn’t forget. It was the first of five official visits to schools where he might spend the next four years. A trip with his twin brother Vince and best friend Ken Marfilius in the passenger seats.

‘We didn’t know what to expect, really, all we knew was that we were going to meet with a coach, and he’ll show us,’ Dan Berry said.

That was nine months ago, when Berry came to Syracuse for the first time searching for that place to row for the next four years. The freshman can now speak from experience that he found that he was looking for.

All three are part of Syracuse’s undefeated Freshman Eight, which has the chance to close out the regular season with a perfect record on Saturday. While the Varsity Eight crew seeks its third straight undefeated cup season, racing for the Packard Cup on the Connecticut River in Hanover N.H., the freshmen will look to secure an undefeated record that hasn’t been achieved in four years.

His confidence comes from the trust, the camaraderie, the comfort that comes from knowing he’ll have his best friend seated toward him, his twin brother to his back in the same boat, racing for the same finish line.

‘The Bonner Boys,’ Syracuse head coach Dave Reischman called them.

Originally from the Monsignor Bonner High School, just outside Philadelphia, Dan and Vince Berry and Marfilius have rowed together their entire career.

‘We knew each other all our lives,’ Dan Berry said. ‘Me and Vince meet Kenny in eighth grade, just as friends because we lived 10 minutes away from each other.

‘We were really close as soon as we started rowing, we knew we’d become best friends.’

But things nearly didn’t end up that way. It was the freshman year of high school when Vince decided he wasn’t going to row.

He changed his mind, and the three of them, without prior knowledge or expectations of the sport went on to win the national championships that year, with Marfilius in the coxswain’s seat and Dan and Vince gripping oars.

Marfilius can recite what happened, from winning the Stotesbury Cup to the invitation to the national championships in Florida.

The three and the Freshman Eight have never fallen behind a boat this season. They’ve learned not only from themselves but also from the upperclassmen who helped convince the three that Syracuse was for them.

‘The team didn’t define themselves by freshmen or by upperclassmen, it seemed like they were just one whole team, and they just accepted each other for rowing and not for age or class,’ Dan Berry said. ‘You don’t really find that too much at other schools.’

The Freshman Eight record proves this year’s recruiting class may be one of the best in Reischman’s tenure at SU. But Reischman’s not ready to judge.

‘They’re going to have to put four good solid years here to prove that the program’s a better place for them having been here,’ Reischman said.

First-year freshman coach and recruiting coordinator Dave Weiss didn’t recruit the Bonner Boys, but he can tell you why they’re here. It’s the leadership they saw present at SU, something they hope to be a part of someday. Yet, the Freshman Eight have far more meters to tread.

‘They need to learn to row within themselves,’ Weiss said, ‘to be able to find the balance between aggression and relaxation when you’re throwing everything at the rowing stroke.’

But that lack of knowledge, of not having found their limitations, may work to the trio’s advantage. A clear mindset helped lead the Bonner Boys to that national championship without having ever rowed before.

Regardless of whether they complete their season undefeated or what the future holds for them, Dan Berry can still say he found what he was looking for. A place where he could race with his best friend seated toward him, his twin brother to his back in the same boat, racing for the same finish line.

‘We were three best friends wanting the same thing,’ Berry said. ‘Once you figure that out you’ve got a couple of other people wanting the same thing, you’re pretty much guaranteed for success.’

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on May 6, 2008 at 12:00 pm