W. Crew atones for '91 Plate in New York

The Penn women's crew team finished in second place at the Connell Cup on the Harlem River in New York behind a strong Yale crew, but ahead of Columbia by more than three seconds. Coming off the disappointing home opener, the Class of '91 Plate, the varsity eight finished with a time of 7:09.2 behind the Elis with a time of 6:56.1 and ahead of Columbia with a time of 7:12.9 over 2,000 meters which, although slower than the home meet, was a relatively good time taking into account the tides and the winds. "Overall, the boats had mixed performances on Saturday," Penn assistant coach Angie Heron said. "The varsity boat showed definite improvement over last weekend, and the first novice boat had an impressive race." With an improved start, the Quakers' varsity eight boat was initially even with the Yale crew, but the Red and Blue were unable to maintain the speed and the Elis pulled away for the first-place finish. Because of the rolling water conditions and the Yale boat rowing into the Quakers' lane, which added to the tough water conditions, the Penn boat was unable to continue its strong pace through the finish. But the crew was still pleased with the effort. "We were disappointed in that we lost, but but we weren't disappointed in our performance," Penn co-captain Heather Whalen said. "We were proud of the way we raced." In a move to improve the boat's time, Heron changed the lineup and moved Penn senior Meera Bhatia into the stroking position. The move proved to be beneficial in the crew's time this past weekend. "[Bhatia] has a lot of experience, and she adds an aggressive confidence to our crew? and a fiery start off the line," Heron said. After the high expectations the team had put on itself going into the first regatta of the season in which the Quakers were disappointed with their performance, the lineup change was a necessary one to improve the boat's time. "Definitely, the whole boat is rowing better in this lineup," Bhatia said. "We were more ready and we rowed harder in this race." The first novice boat continued its success with another win over both the Elis and the Lions, but the second novice boat finished a tenth of a second behind the Yale boat for a second-place finish. "They consistently inched away from the other two crews -- establishing a solid lead by the 500-meters -to-go mark, and they continued to increase their margin in the final stretch," Heron said. The novice boat also had its share of lineup changes because of injuries within the members of the boat. Rachel Jolley has successfully taken over the stroking position as is evident with the boat's strong performance. The junior varsity boat, under difficult conditions, finished last behind Yale and Columbia. Because of a regatta Saturday in San Diego, the crew had to race in an unfamiliar boat, since their usual one was in transit to California. In addition, a 50-foot vessel began to steer in the direction of the JV8 boat. The incident didn't effect the placings of the race, but the crew finished with a 37 stroke-per-minute pace to finish with a respectable time. In a subpar performance, the Quakers came away with many good times, but still hope to build on these times.