W. Crew winless on Raritan

The Penn's women's crew varsity eight got off to a great start in Saturday's race against Cornell and Rutgers. Unfortunately, the Quakers' performance went downhill from there, as Penn finished third, coming in 10 seconds behind the Big Red and five seconds after Rutgers in the race for the Class of '89 Plate. Because Penn, Cornell and Rutgers were all ranked together -- Nos. 12, 13 and 14, respectively, in last week's Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges Coaches Poll -- the race was expected to be closer. "[The varsity eight] had a brilliant start," Penn coach Barb Kirch said. "Something happened, we're not quite sure what, and they just shut down. "When a crew gets off the line as well as they did they usually don't give it up. But they gave this one up." Varsity eight rowers Rachel Pringle, a sophomore, and Kate Magee, a freshman, agreed that though they rowed an aggressive start, their race began to slide after the first quarter of the 2,000-meter race. "We had a very strong start," Pringle said. "As the race progressed we weren't as strong. We ended up losing seats and then ended up losing the race." Magee believes that a lack of boat unity kept the Quakers from winning. "We just fell apart in the second 500 meters," she said. "We just decided to row our own ways." In the two weeks prior to the race at Cornell, the varsity eight had fallen to Syracuse and Northeastern at Northeastern and to Georgetown at home on the Schuylkill. "Our coach told us that we lost confidence after our race with Georgetown," Magee said. "We knew we could have held on to our lead. When the other boat came on to us we had the power to hold on to our lead but we just didn't have the confidence to." On a brighter note, the Quakers' second varsity eight took a close second-place finish, coming in five seconds after Cornell and 1.2 seconds ahead of the Scarlet Knights. This means that the crew's undefeated season has been snapped. However, the eight had to race without two of its usual rowers. "The second varsity struggled from having bow seat [Kate Ewall] break her arm they day before and fourth seat [Loren Berman] was taking the MCATs," Kirch said. Kirch believes that adjusting to the new lineup may have caused problems for the boat. "[The second varsity boat] rowed OK," she said. "I respect the effort of the people who jumped in but there's a reason Kate and Loren are in the boat." Penn's first novice eight raced to a second-place finish as well. "We've been juggling our lineup for a few weeks now and it's hard to get a rhythm when you keep switching around," said Laura Hamm, who rowed in the first novice eight. "We haven't been able to get our rhythm quite yet, but we have a tremendous amount of potential. As of right now we're not doing as well as we possibly could. I think we'll reach that level by the end of the season." The Quakers have just one more cup race in which to prove themselves. Penn's crews will race at Dartmouth with Princeton next weekend in their last race before Eastern Sprints, held at New Preston, Conn., on May 16. "It's disappointing to be losing races after working so hard but the season isn't over and Sprints is what really counts," Pringle said. Magee agrees that this weekend could have gone better but she believes that the race was a learning experience. "We have to work on our attitudes," she said. "We have to do everything together and make [one] decision to win not eight decisions on how to win. Our minds all go different ways and that loses it for us." Magee believes that the crew has potential and can regain its strength for the remaining races. "I feel like [the season] has been a little bit of a roller coaster. I know we're a strong crew but we have to find a way to unlock our strengths."