Both M. Crew teams must similar fates

It was the same old story for both Penn men's crew teams at their races this weekend. The heavyweight team competed on the Schuylkill, where Princeton defeated Penn and Columbia, respectively, to retain the Childs Cup for the sixth straight year. The lightweight team, meanwhile, traveled north to the Housatonic River in Connecticut, where Yale took home the Dodge Cup for the seventh year in a row. Princeton won all three varsity races and both freshmen races on the Schuylkill, while Penn came in second in all five. Columbia competed in just two races. "We're a little disappointed," Penn coach Stan Bergman said. "They really took it to us in every race." The closest any Penn crew came to catching Princeton was in the first freshmen eight race, which the Tigers won by a five-second margin. The first-varsity boat finished seven seconds behind Princeton in the race for the Cup. "We weren't too happy [with the finish]," said junior Nick Tripician, Penn's seven seat. "We didn't execute enough, and we weren't aggressive enough. We let Princeton dictate the race when we should've been dictating." Despite the disappointing finishes, Bergman remained positive. "I'm sure these guys will rebound," he said. "We still have to continue to get a lot better." The coach also said that he felt that much of the blame should be placed on his shoulders. "I have to do a better job coaching," Bergman said. "I'm not getting across what I need to get across. I just need to be more emphatic about the stuff I want them to work on." Tripician was also confident that the team would improve. "We need to get more aggressive throughout the race and really bite down into it," he said. "We've been working on our starts, and they've gotten better. But, mainly we need to execute our race plan better." On that end, Bergman hinted that he may be tinkering with the personnel in each boat in the upcoming weeks. "We may take a look at a few different guys, if they come along," he said. "We'll see how it goes early in the week." Bergman certainly didn't think changes were imminent, though. "Sometimes, the solution is just to get what you have and make it better," Bergman said. "This could be the most talented group I've had, as far as physical ability, in 15 years of coaching here." Tripician remained hopeful about the team's chances of catching Princeton in time for Eastern Sprints and IRAs, which are held May 9 and May 27-29, respectively. "We'll see these guys again and we'll be ready," Tripician said. The lightweight team came away with a few more positives from its second-place finish, even though Yale retained the Dodge Cup for the seventh straight year. On the positive side, the Quakers left Connecticut having achieved their goal of making up some time on the Elis. Penn finished only six seconds behind Yale -- a three-second improvement over its finish in the San Diego Crew Classic, the race that started the season. Another plus was that the Quakers defeated Columbia for the first time in three years, as the Lions came in third in the first varsity race. "We were real happy with that," Penn coach Bruce Konopka said. "That's a big thing to beat Columbia, as they got second at Nationals last year." Konopka was pleased with the race itself, if not the outcome. "We were challenging Yale the whole first part of the race," Konopka said. "With about 900 meters to go they pulled away. We had some breakdowns in technique and lost our rhythm a little but Yale had to push the whole way." Senior lightweight captain Dan Blaney, who rowed in the three seat for the first varsity eight on Saturday, agreed with his coach's assessment of the race. "We were right with them until about two-thirds of the way," Blaney said. "We went through an odd turn in the race course that they just handled a little better, they kept it there the rest of the way, even though we pushed them a little at the end." Both Blaney and Konopka were extremely confident in the Quakers' chances of continuing to close the gap with the Elis before Eastern Sprints. "We picked up a couple of seconds on them even though we didn't row that well technically," Blaney said. "We're headed in the right direction."