The currents were moving quickly in the Schuylkill River on Saturday and so was Harvard's varsity eight boat, finishing the 2000 meters with an impressive time of 5:41.8 and beating both Cornell (5:44.9) and Penn (5:52.3) to win the Matthews-Leonard Cup.
"We had excellent racing conditions," Penn coach Mike Irwin said, speaking of the overcast sky, light rain and fast water the Quakers raced in on Saturday.
But while ideal conditions might have been overhead two of the top teams in the Ivy League were competing with the Quakers on the water.
"We put forth a much better racing effort," Irwin said. "But we saw two of what will be the top four or five crews in the league."
A big part of what made this race better for Penn was finally being able to get a solid jump off the start, something that had been troubling the boat both in last week's race against Rutgers and in practice.
"We got off the line as planned," coxswain Mark Albert said. "In the right mental frame of mind."
The effectiveness Penn was finally able to demonstrate at the start paid off for the first 1000m of the race -- during which Penn was able to hold off Cornell and stay competitive. However, the Harvard boat was already ahead of everyone.
Cornell started to pick up speed at the turn in the Schuylkill racecourse, where they had the advantage as a result of a staggered start. By the time all three boats started the last 500m of sprinting, Cornell was in a position to pull away from the Quakers.
Still, Penn had positives to take away from the weekend, namely finally achieving the boat speed it needed early on in the race. Also, the ability to stay with Cornell is something the Quakers can be proud of.
"The improvements we worked to make showed through," Irwin said.
And racing against such strong competition made apparent what further work needs to be done.
"Harvard and Cornell are both very strong crews," junior Bowen Posner, of the junior varsity eight, said. "But we need to be consistently intense -- it translates to race day. We learned a lot today."
The JV eight also came in third place, 11 seconds behind Harvard and nine behind Cornell.
The first freshman boat was able to do slightly better than the other boats, beating Harvard but losing to Cornell by four seconds after a strong final sprint by the Big Red.
"It's good experience for the freshmen," Penn assistant coach John Fife said. "But it was not the outcome we were looking for. Cornell did a better job than us -- on that particular day they were just a better crew. That's the way racing goes."
For all of the boats in the Penn program, Saturday's race gives the team an opportunity to evaluate the competition and themselves.
"It's all a process," Albert said. "We're fortunate enough to be a part of such a competitive league where we can go out and evaluate our progress on a weekly basis against the same boats we will see come [Eastern] Sprints time."
"We're happy to get a chance to race," Fife said.
