Bad draw sinks Hwt. Crew

There were a lot of things the Penn heavyweight crew team had on its side going into last weekend's Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship Regatta.

But luck wasn't one of them.

The Quakers' `bad luck' put them in an extremely tough semifinal draw, which resulted in a fifth-place finish in the heat and a trip to the Petite Final for the second straight year.

In the end, despite owning a No. 7 national ranking and having the momentum from two straight victories leading into IRAs, Penn took ninth overall on the Cooper River in Camden, N.J., equalling its weakest performance in over 20 years.

It certainly was not the outcome Penn had expected, as things started out well for the Quakers last Thursday.

Penn's varsity eight boat took first place out of six teams with a time of 5:39.55 in the fourth and most competitive preliminary heat that windy morning. The win gave the Quakers an automatic bid to the next day's semifinal races.

"Our best performance [of the weekend] was in the very first race when we beat Northeastern by a bowball," Penn coach Stan Bergman said.

Penn's blazing time was the second fastest among all boats in the preliminary heats. Only No. 3 Princeton's winning time of 5:37.37 in the third heat was faster.

Also joining Penn and Princeton in the upper half -- semifinals one and two -- with automatic bids were No. 1 University of California-Berkeley and No. 5 Brown.

The Golden Bears destroyed their competition in heat one, crossing the line more than six seconds ahead of second place. An equally lopsided result emerged from the second heat, in which the Bears from the East Coast also finished six seconds ahead of their closest foe.

The other 20 teams raced in reps later that day. First and second place in each of the four heats qualified for the upper half, while the other 12 teams were slated to compete in the consolation semifinals.

The results from reps were mostly as expected, with the higher-ranked teams coming out on top.

No. 13 Temple was the only exception to this rule, coming in third place in rep four.

In any of the other three heats, the Owls' time of 5:39.77 would have been good enough for first place and a chance to compete in the Grand Final.

Instead, a poor draw coupled with a third place finish put them in a consolation semifinal heat, which they easily won en route to capturing first place in the third level final.

But the Owls were not the only ones adversely affected by the draws of the IRA, as Temple's West Philadelphia neighbors were also hit with a similar setback.

The Quakers were put in a semifinal heat alongside four other teams ranked in the top nine nationally -- Princeton, No. 4 Northeastern, No. 6 Washington and No. 9 Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, the other, competitively weaker semifinal heat in the upper half included UC-Berkeley, Brown and four teams with double-digit national rankings.

Penn took fifth in its semifinal heat with a time of 5:57.62. Failing to make the top three in their tough draw, the Quakers were sent to compete in the Petite Final.

Bergman, however, refused to place blame the draw.

"There were some really good crews in there, and we were just a little bit off," Bergman said. "Obviously we wanted to do better than that, but we didn't do it when we had to."

Failing to make the Grand Final took its toll on the morale of the Quakers, evident in their third-place finish in the Petite Final with a time of 5:45.73.

Despite the mediocre end, however, the Penn rowing program has been very successful on most fronts, finishing the dual-meet season with a 6-2 overall record.

"The guys had an unbelievable year, and I'm very satisfied with the season," Bergman said. "They won some really close races and had a lot of heart.

"I think the guys gave it everything they could."

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