The Penn men's lightweight crew team went into the fall season hoping to improve on the dismal results of its previous spring season.
What they got was a combination of positives and negatives.
The freshman team was able to perform extremely well at two of its three races, but the varsity team experienced collisions during several races that knocked its boats out of contention.
"The fall races gave us a good assessment of what the speed of the league is," Penn coach Mike Irwin said. "But the collisions prevented us from discovering our own true speed."
The varsity team began the season with sixth and seventh place finishes at the Navy Day Regatta.
Since then, however, the varsity eight boats experienced collisions at the Head of the Charles and the Princeton Chase in which the top boat for the Red and Blue finished 14th and 16th respectively.
"We feel that we still have a lot of room for growth," Irwin said. "Our best performance is still in front of us."
The varsity team also had to adjust to Irwin, who took over as head coach after the departure of 11-year coach Bruce Konopka.
Irwin, along with freshman coach and 2002 Penn grad John Fife, is trying to build up the program so it can be competitive with Ivy League crew powerhouses such as Yale and Princeton.
"Our results could have been better, but we needed time to get used to Coach Irwin's coaching and the style of rowing that he is looking for," Penn senior captain Tevis Jacobs said.
Despite the fall accidents, the varsity team is enthusiastic about the spring season and confident about their chances in the sprint races.
"With the team's dedication and talent, the lightweights are going to defeat some crews that we haven't beaten in many years," Jacobs said.
The freshman lightweight team pulled off an amazing 7th-place finish at the Head of the Schuylkill, in which the only lightweight boat to finish ahead of the Quakers was Navy.
The oarsmen are confident that their fall performance is an indication of another strong spring season for the freshman squad.
"On a scale of three to 17, I would rate my confidence level for the spring season somewhere between 16 and 16.5," freshman oarsman Jaime O'Neill said.
The strength of the freshman team can only add to the youth and vitality of the current varsity squad, over half of which is made up of sophomores.
"Given such a young team, I predict that in this [year] and in coming years, Penn will take its place in the league as a force to be reckoned with," Jacobs said.
This week, the lightweight team will begin their intense indoor winter training program, which includes a week-long trip to Tampa, Fla., on Jan. 3. The spring season will begin on March 29, when the Quakers take on Rutgers at the Schuylkill River.
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