Hwt. Crew takes seventh at Eastern Sprints

After a less than perfect regular season, the Penn men's crew teams were prepared to peak and race at their highest level in the Eastern Athletic Rowing College's Sprints held on Lake Quinsigamond in Massachusetts. They were ready to defend their title even though they went into the race as the sixth seed, but Princeton, which had an undefeated regular season and came in as the No. 1 seed won the heavyweight championship and Harvard took the lightweight championship. Penn was in for a challenge when assigned to the same heat as Princeton, Wisconsin, Boston University and Cornell. Only the top two finishers in each heat could advance to the Grand Final race for the championship. With 0.6 seconds separating the Quakers and the Badgers, the Red and Blue's chance to defend their title disappeared. "We were in a really tough heat," Penn coach Stan Bergman said. "We got knocked out by 0.6 of a second even though we had the third-fastest time." In the Grand Final, Princeton finished first, but the main competition after the halfway point was for second place. Yale finished one-tenth of a second ahead of Brown, and Harvard, Wisconsin and Northeastern followed, respectively. The Tigers, in recognition of their win at the Sprints and their undefeated regular season, received the Rowe Cup for the third straight time. In addition, Princeton took home the Ivy League trophy. Penn was not finished for the day after failing to qualify for the Grand Finals. They won their Petite Finals with a time over two seconds faster than Dartmouth. With the win, the Quakers finished in seventh place in the competition. A bright note for the future of Penn's rowing program was the freshman heavyweight boat, which finished two seconds faster than Princeton, Wisconsin and Harvard to win the Sprints in their division. The second varsity boat placed third in their division behind Princeton and Yale. The lightweight men were also in Massachusetts competing in the Sprints. They went in as the fifth seed, but they finished 0.1 seconds behind Dartmouth, resulting in a fourth-place finish in a heat in which the top three schools competed in the Grand Finals. Harvard, Yale and Princeton finished in the top three places in the Grand Finals. Penn in a close race just pulled out at the end and won the consolation race, the Petite Final, by one-tenth of a second ahead of Rutgers. Although Harvard won the Sprints, Yale came home with the Jope Cup, because they accumulated the most points of any of the lightweight teams throughout the season. The Quakers had a bit of bad luck when the Dartmouth boat veered into their lane, forcing the Penn coxswain to steer the boat to avoid a collision. The incident caused Penn to come in fourth, a foot behind the Big Green, causing the Red and Blue to compete in the Petite Finals. Although Penn protested, their protest wasn't accepted by the judges. "Both boats were disappointed," Penn lightweight coach Bruce Konopka said. "We were hoping to contend for a medal? Winning the Petites was a small satisfaction. We'd had a real good season and this wasn't indicative of what we've been doing." In addition, the Penn women's boats will be competing on Lake Waramaug in Connecticut this Sunday for the Eastern Athletic Women's Rowing Colleges' Sprints.