Hwt. Crew using previous close losses as weekend's motivation

A team can only swallow so many second-place finishes before it comes back for revenge.

That is exactly what the Penn heavyweight crew team intends to do this Saturday at the Adams Cup.

After finishing five seconds behind Princeton two weeks ago and less than one second behind Yale Saturday, the Quakers will take on Navy and Harvard on the waters of Annapolis, Md., on Saturday.

Penn's second freshman four was the lone boat to win its race against Yale, but each boat has finished with very competitive times the past two weekends.

The Quakers hope to use the close finishes as motivation for upcoming races.

"It is always disappointing to get that close to winning and then not win it," junior coxswain Andrew Kelly said. "But you have to get the positives out of it."

Kelly also noted that Penn's loss to Navy by .39 seconds last month in California would be another factor adding to the Quakers' frustration.

The Midshipmen are 6-2 this season, good enough to earn them a No. 5 ranking in the latest Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association/U.S. Rowing national poll.

Last weekend the Navy first varsity boat won the Goes Trophy for the first time since 2000 by holding off Syracuse and Cornell.

"We lost to [Navy] in the last couple strokes earlier this season," senior Hobey Stuart said. "They are definitely respectable, probably about our speed."

Rowing coaches across the nation seem to agree with Stuart's assessment, as the Quakers are currently biting at Navy's feet with a No. 11 ranking in the same poll.

While the Midshipmen appear comparable to the Red and Blue, the No. 2 Crimson pose a bigger threat.

Harvard has won its first four races this season, including beating Princeton by 13 seconds and Brown by 16 seconds.

"We know they are pretty fast this year," Kelly said. "Right now they might be a little further along than we are in terms of speed, but we're not going to go in there not racing to win."

To end the Crimson's undefeated run and to redeem themselves against Navy, the Quakers seek to continuously improve their form. They will focus on flaws that have appeared in their most recent races.

"After every race we reevaluate what we think our weaknesses are," Stuart said. "It is just a matter of working on our sprint a little bit this week for the last 500 meters."

Kelly noted that several facets of the race require improvement to win this weekend.

"We have been working on both ends of the race," Kelly said. "We need to start making sure we get off the line quickly, and it was at the end where we lost some time against Yale, so we have been working on that as well."

However, the Quakers also stress that analyzing their game too much can be costly.

"We don't really spend too much time thinking about it, we just race," Stuart said. "If you think too much, you psych yourself out."

Harvard's impressive season to date does not psych the Quakers out, either.

"Harvard's strong," Kelly said. "But we are going to go in there with the intention of winning."

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