The Penn women's crew team started this year with a goal.
As official hosts of the NCAA Championships -- to be held June 2-June 4 on New Jersey's Cooper River -- the Quakers wanted to be there.
The Red and Blue didn't just want to welcome the nation's best crews to the Philadelphia area, the Quakers wanted to compete against them.
To get there, they had to qualify in last weekend's EAWRC's, held on Lake Waramaug in New Preston, Conn.
Sadly, for the Quakers, their time of 7:03.50, which placed them fifth out of six teams in the Petite Final, failed to qualify them for the national tournament.
"I know that the varsity was disappointed," Quakers senior Diane Lincoln said, "Afterwards, [Quakers] coach [Barb Kirch] said that her only regret for the season was the varsity boat's last 30 or 40 strokes in that race."
Even though the Quakers will be watching the NCAAs from the sidelines, their season overall can only be called a success (notice Kirch said she had only one regret).
The Quakers have improved their overall records and finishes in Easterns in each of their last three seasons.
One boat that did particularly well was Lincoln's second varsity eight. Lincoln was one of four seniors in the boat that took second in the Petite Final with a time of 7:07.10, about 4 1/2 seconds behind Cornell's 7:02.80.
The Quakers eked out their second-place finish by a mere four-tenths of a second over the Navy Midshipmen.
"It was a really good way to end the season," Lincoln said. "We beat Dartmouth after losing to them earlier, which was great.
"All of the seniors in our boat ended the day saying 'what a great way to end the season."
The Quakers had some competitive finishes in their two other races on the day.
In the Open Varsity Four Petite Final, the Quakers took fourth by beating Navy and Northwestern with a time of 8:11.70.
In the Open Novice Eight, the Quakers finished in sixth-place out of six teams, after fifth-place Yale nipped them by four-tenths of a second.
