Crab squashes Orange, gives W. Crew second on Charles

The varsity boat of the eighth-ranked Syracuse women's crew team found out just how bad it can be to catch a crab in the middle of a race on Saturday.

Deadlocked with Penn and Northeastern amidst choppy waters on the Charles River in Boston, the Orangewomen were dealt a sudden blow when the oar of their stroke was turned backwards -- a crab, in rowing terminology.

While Penn was handed a considerable advantage as Syracuse was considerably slowed by the error, the Quakers were unable to overcome No. 18 Northeastern and finished second in the Orange Challenge Cup Race.

With the win, Northeastern remained unbeaten in three races.

"We had a real good finish in the race," Penn freshman Megan Wellington said. "It felt real good to come away with second place."

And while Penn felt fine to come away with second place amidst a field of talented competitors, it remains questionable whether the Quakers would have finished runnerup without some help from Syracuse's untimely miscue.

Yet, Penn is choosing to downplay the role that the Orangewomen's misfortune played in their placement. Rather, the Quakers are sticking to the final race times, in which they finished nine seconds ahead of Syracuse.

"It doesn't take anything away," Wellington said, "because anyone could have caught a crab."

In fact, the unranked Quakers have gone so far as to assert their supremacy over their top-10 foe.

"The way the race unfolded we showed that we were technically superior to [Syracuse]," Wellington said.

Penn would only get to try its hands at proving its technical superiority in only one other race. While five boats from the Red and Blue would ordinarily race in a normal day of competition, due to inclement weather only one other boat -- the first novice team -- was given the chance to compete.

But unlike the varsity race, this time there were no real surprises to be had.

Syracuse finished first with a time of 7:36.4 -- nearly 15 seconds ahead of the Quakers -- who finished third with a time of 7:51.0.

The Huskies notched second place in 7:42.2.

After last weekend's strong results, Penn will have little rest before this weekend's next race in Ithaca, N.Y. The Quakers are slated to face local rival Rutgers, in addition to host Cornell.

The last time Penn met the same tandem was April 21, 2001 in New Brunswick, N.J. In last year's matchup, the Quakers finished second to Rutgers, but were able to edge Cornell.

But in order to ascend to the top spot the Quakers know that they cannot rest on their laurels from their successes last weekend -- especially facing two squads that will no doubt be fired up after somewhat lackluster performances last weekend.

While Rutgers was swept in all four races by No. 2 Brown, Cornell finished third behind Princeton and Radcliffe, respectively.

"We've made a lot of progress over the past two weeks," Wellington said. "We know that we have been getting faster, but there are still just a few things we need to work on in the boat.

"We just have to keep trying to be more proficient in all areas of our stroke, and we will do well."

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