Last Friday, Elizabeth ‘Lou’ Berl was hired as the new lightweight coach, coming from Davidson, N.C., where she most recently started Lou’s Garage Crew, a program designed to train young competitive rowers. Prior to arriving in Cambridge, Berl coached at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., as well as at the University of Virginia and the Ohio State University.

With no head coach named for the first part of their training this season, the rowers looked to one another for support.

“The coaching changes have some impact on the team’s performance and culture, but ultimately it’s the rowers themselves that dictate the success of the team,” Lenczowski said. “We [used] this transition as an opportunity to step up ourselves and see what we [could] accomplish working together.”

Assistant coach Lauren Fisher has led the girls so far this season, along with a few volunteer assistant coaches and women’s heavyweight head coach Liz O’Leary.

“We’re sticking with the same goals that we’ve had in the past, and we’re working with a similar training plan,” Fisher said. “They’re doing a really good job of being able to continue to move on and meet their goals....Their times are actually faster than their times were at this point last year.”

This weekend, the lightweight team will enter three boats, competing in the Women’s Championship Eight and the Women’s Lightweight Fours. Fisher hopes for a repeat of the first eight’s first-place performance last year and expects solid performances from her other two boats as well.

“Head of the Charles is definitely the most important race for us in the fall,” Fisher said.

In preparing for the race, Lenczowski remembers the advice of her former coach.

“It’s great to be able to do well at Head of the Charles, but ultimately it doesn’t mean you’ll win at the IRA’s,” Lenczowski said.