M. Crew teams to meet top competition

While most Penn students wait in anxious anticipation of the weekend's Spring Fling festivities, the Penn men's crew teams, in the words of heavyweight coxswain Mark Redding, "have a job ahead of us before we can have any fun." Redding, along with the rest of the heavyweights, will travel to Connecticut to compete for the Blackwell Cup against Yale and Columbia on the Housatonic River, while the lightweight team will stay home to take on Navy and archrival Princeton on the Schuylkill. The Quakers last won the Blackwell Cup in 1997 but the Elis have taken it home four out of the last five years. The Lions seem to have the worst luck, though, as they have not touched the cup in over 17 years. "Yale will be a formidable opponent," Penn coach Stan Bergman said. "Columbia is getting better all the time but Yale is the better of the two. The guys are anxious to get up there and make amends for last week." Last week, the Quakers were handily defeated by the Princeton Tigers. Redding shared his coach's sentiments about the loss. "It was a wake-up call," the junior said. "We have to be more aggressive and worry more about our boat and not what's going on around us." Redding added that many of the issues that plagued the race last weekend were addressed during this week's practices. "We had a real good week," he said. "It's time to get on top of everything and we started doing that this week." Bergman was also pleased with the practices. "We've made some good improvements," Bergman said. "I like what's going on." This won't be the first time the Quakers have competed against the Elis this season. The two crews met on the other side of the country in the season-opening San Diego Crew Classic. "Yale had a length on us the entire race which they got at the start," Redding said. "We got [the length] back but lost by half a seat." The official results prove Redding's assessment, showing that the Penn boat was a mere half-second behind the Elis. The Penn lightweight crew has not yet met either of this weekend's opponents, but the rowers expect a high level of competition from Princeton, the top-ranked lightweight team in the USRowing Poll. The Quakers are ranked eighth in the poll, two spots in front of the 10th-ranked Midshipmen. "Navy I think we should beat," junior Ben Goldman said. "But Princeton is going to be fast. They've been winning all of their races by wide margins. It should be a really good race." Sean Ford, who occupies the varsity four-seat, was also impressed with the Tigers. "Princeton's going to be around the top of the league," the sophomore said. "We hope to go out, row well and give them a run for their money." Penn usually meets Navy and Princeton in separate races. This year, at the request of Navy's coach, the three will race together. That means two cups will be on the line in the same race as Penn competes against Navy for the Callow Cup and against Princeton for the Wood-Hammond Cup. Goldman commented on the importance of this race in relation to the rest of the season. "This is the end of our cup season," Goldman said. "This is the last race until Sprints." Eastern Sprints serve as the championships for the Ivy League and other member schools of the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges. Goldman also commented that Saturday evening would be the "last time to relax until the big push for Sprints." The crew, however, isn't quite where it would like to be at this point in the season. "We're not happy with the outcomes of the races," Ford said. "We're picking up speed here and there, but we still looking for that big jump to vault us into contention."