While Penn students are immersed in the drunken festivities of Spring Fling, the Penn women's crew team will be focusing on a different kind of boat race.
The Quakers will travel to the Charles River in Boston on Saturday to face Northeastern and Syracuse in their second regatta of the season.
After a mediocre performance at the Connell Cup two weeks ago, in which the varsity eight boat took third against Yale and Columbia, the team made a few position changes in hopes of increasing its speed for future races.
The Quakers are looking to finish first this weekend to keep themselves in contention for a spot in the NCAA championships -- an honor that Penn women's crew has not enjoyed in many years.
"We've been practicing pretty hard; it should hopefully result in something brilliant," Penn junior Kate MacGregor said.
Both Northeastern and Syracuse are likely to be competitive opponents.
The Orangewomen are currently ranked No. 8 in the country and Northeastern enters the race with a No. 19 ranking. The Red and Blue are currently unranked.
After dropping last weekend to Yale, Syracuse is out to redeem itself and prove that the rankings are fair.
In Northeastern's home opener last weekend, the Huskies surprised their competition with decisive wins over Dartmouth, Buffalo and Boston College in the first and second varsity eight races.
Earlier this season, the Huskies also defeated Rutgers and Wisconsin.
The Quakers are hoping to avenge last year's loss to the Orangemen and are looking to beat the Huskies for the second-straight year.
"It's disappointing to miss Fling," Penn freshman Megan Wellington said. "Right now we're just focusing on rowing; we want to go out there and do our thing."
The change in positions has given the team renewed confidence going into this weekend's competition.
However, the Red and Blue were never in need of self-assurance.
"We're a really resilient team," MacGregor said. "Things that might phase other crews don't phase us."
With most of their season still ahead of them, the Quakers have every reason to be hopeful and optimistic.
"It's so early, we haven't tapped into our potential," Wellington said. "We haven't had a chance to prove to ourselves that we're as strong a crew as we know we are."
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