Penn rowing finds room for improvement after Princeton Chase

Despite making some waves at the Princeton Chase, Penn rowing has still identified some room for improvement as it looks forward to winter training.

At Lake Carnegie, home for the annual Princeton Chase event, the Red and Blue picked up several strong finishes in a series of head races against formidable opposition this Sunday.

The Chase — the Quakers’ last racing opportunity for the fall season — saw a range of competing crews, including many Ivy League rivals, UC Berkeley, Navy and the University of Delaware.

For the heavyweight oarsmen, impressive results included a sixth place finish in the varsity eights race, a fourth place in the varsity fours race and a third place in the freshman eights race.

In the varsity eights race, Penn’s top boat was narrowly outrowed by Navy by a margin of three seconds, signaling the continuance of a fierce rivalry between the two crews. Princeton, Yale and Boston University took the top three finishes, respectively.

In the varsity fours, the Penn heavyweights trailed Princeton’s top boat by a less than two seconds, finishing fourth out of 52 boats.

Penn’s top finish at the event was found in the freshmen eights race — which included 31 boats — where the heavyweight freshmen edged out a group of lightweight crews, including Harvard and Cornell, to finish third after two Princeton boats.

While the heavyweights looked strong at Princeton this Sunday, the absence of Harvard and Brown’s heavyweight crews makes it difficult to assess their relative position compared to each other.

Greg Myhr, head coach for the heavyweights, is looking for a position in the upper half of the Ivy League — ambitious, to say the least.

After this past Sunday, it is clear that even with a display of strength from the Penn heavyweights, they cannot afford to take time off as they head into winter training.

The lightweights struggled somewhat in their own varsity eights race, where they finished 11th out of 31 boats, just behind Navy’s top boat.

In the lightweight fours, the Red and the Blue oarsmen put up a stronger performance, as they finished eighth and managed to place ahead of the likes of Princeton, Navy and Delaware.

The lightweights, like the heavyweights, have to maximize their gains from winter training to compete at the top of the Ivy League in the coming traditional spring season.

The women, who also — as head coach Mike Lane articulated — aim for a position in the upper half of the Ivy League this year, managed to finish in the top ten in two races.

The women’s varsity eights race did not fare as well, finishing 15th out of a total of 50 boats.

The women’s crew, unlike the others, will finish its fall season at the Rivanna Romp event in Charlottesville in mid-November, where it will get a last chance to make final adjustments for winter training.

They too will need to make the most out of the winter that lies ahead.

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