After a tough loss to Rutgers this past weekend, the Penn lightweight crew team will race against Harvard and Cornell on the Schuylkill River with not only a stronger desire to win but also a slightly altered line-up.
"We've made some line-up changes to fine tune the combination for the best boat speed," Penn coach Mike Irwin said.
Sophomore Jason Brooks was moved out of the junior varsity boat into the varsity's three-seat and senior Dan Thistle was moved down to JV. In addition, some switching went on within the varsity boat, resulting in sophomore Sean Cronin being moved to the two-seat and sophomore Dave Read being switched to the five-seat. Penn hopes the subs will come through against two tough opponents.
"Harvard and Cornell are two of the powerhouses of the league and we're going to go out to establish ourselves as a contender," Read said.
In addition to being strong teams, both squads will be opening their seasons Saturday.
"Since it's their opening race, Harvard and Cornell will be very fired up and aggressive coming into this weekend," Irwin said.
The Quakers will have to be equally intense, if they want to prove that last week's loss to Rutgers is not an indication of how the rest of the season will transpire
"We were very unhappy about what happened with Rutgers, and are ready to take it to Harvard and Cornell," coxswain Mark Albert said. "Coming off last weekend, the varsity boat has approached practice with new vigor, and have made strides in the right direction with every stroke taken."
But winning against two of the toughest crew teams in the league will take more than energy and line-up switches.
"The Rutgers race really woke us up," sophomore stroke Mike King said. "So we're going into this one with a different mental attitude."
The Quakers will certainly need that new attitude, because Harvard and Cornell are predicted to be even more of a challenge than Rutgers. Cornell's varsity eight boat won Eastern Sprints last year in 5:54.45 and Harvard beat the Quakers by two seconds in the Petit Final for an overall eighth-place finish. Cornell beat Rutgers by a comfortable second and a half.
"I think we're going to be a lot more intense and a lot faster this weekend," captain Tevis Jacobs said. "But the competition will also be quite a bit tougher."
Facing the tougher competition will mean, among other things, not getting off to a slow start, unlike last week. The Quakers will need to get a solid kick off the start and row a speedy and aggressive first 700 meters. Keeping in mind what needs to be done, the team's expectations are high.
"I'm optimistic about Saturday," Albert said.
Albert needs to infuse the rest of the boat with that same optimism and inspire an aggressive race to make Saturday's race competitive for all three teams.
