Hwt. Crew edges Yale to win Blackwell Cup

The heavyweights beat Yale while Princeton visited the lightweights. Score one for the heavyweights. Although they missed out on the new, subdued version of Spring Fling, the members of each of the Penn men's crew teams saw improvement in their performances this weekend. The heavyweight varsity eight got its first win of the cup race season. The crew defeated Yale and Columbia on Connecticut's Housatonic River to take the Blackwell Cup from Yale. The Quakers -- ranked sixth nationally in last week's USRowing National Collegiate Rowing Coaches Poll -- beat the fourth-ranked Elis by a margin of just under three seconds. Columbia finished a distant third, crossing the line 18 seconds behind the victorious Penn eight. "We got up off the start, we found our groove -- and when we get into our groove, forget about it," senior bowman Joe Corcoran said of his crew's Blackwell Cup victory. For Penn, it was just the second Blackwell Cup win since 1993; it also marked the first cup win of the season for the '98 Eastern Sprints champion Quakers, who lost to Princeton last week. "We just worked technically this past week," Corcoran said. "We always knew we had the speed and it was just a matter of finding it." Penn coach Stan Bergman attributed the team's success to its ability to "stay very poised throughout the race." While admitting that the race could only serve as a confidence-booster, Bergman didn't think that his experienced team necessarily needed one. "They're a seasoned group of guys and they always go out there expecting to win," he said. "They have a lot of confidence." Bergman also noted that several facets of Penn's race were much improved over the team's previous races. "We had an improved start but we've still got to work on that," he said. "We just got a little bit more out of the boat with each stroke." Despite all the positives, Bergman still found some areas that could use improving. Specifically, the coach noted that he would like to increase the team's cruising speed. He was also sure about his team's ability to improve in these areas before Eastern Sprints on May 9. The Sprints serve as the championships for the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges -- the eight Ivy League teams as well as other top Eastern crews, including Syracuse and Northeastern. "They're confident guys," Bergman said of his team. "They will accept any challenge thrown their way. They're a fun group to work with." In the second varsity race, Yale edged Penn by 1.1 seconds, while the Elis claimed the third varsity race by nine seconds. In the first freshman race, Yale beat the Quakers by three seconds, while Columbia finished a distant 28 seconds behind Penn. The Quakers second freshman eight outpaced Yale by nine seconds. The lightweight crews did not enjoy quite as much success as their cup-winning heavyweight counterparts but they were facing stiffer competition, according to the USRowing Poll. The Quakers, ranked eighth nationally, were defeated in rough conditions by the top-ranked Princeton Tigers, who retained the Wood-Hammond Cup. Penn did come out of the weekend with one cup, though -- the team defeated No. 10 Navy to win the Callow Cup. "We raced [Princeton] pretty tough about two-thirds of the race," Penn lightweight coach Bruce Konopka said. "Towards the end, Princeton got over by the island [opposite the grandstand on the Schuylkill] and into some better water, and that widened the margin a little." Konopka was happy with the way all his crews raced on Saturday. "The [second varsity] did a good job over the last 500 meters to beat Navy," he said. "And the freshmen raced closer than we've ever raced to Princeton." The freshman eight boat finished a mere two seconds behind the Tigers, and according to Konopka, "had a chance to win." "I thought we could've rowed a little better," Konopka said, "but considering the conditions, we did a nice job." Unlike the heavyweight team, the lightweight team will not have another cup race before Eastern Sprints. As a result, Konopka was very pleased with his team's performance in its last race before the championship season. "Working on technique is really giving us good results," Konopka said. "This week will be a hard week [of practice], but once exams start, we're going back to our normal workload and we won't be doing anything more than usual."