The Penn varsity lightweight crew team fell to the No. 3-ranked Princeton Tigers on the Schuylkill on Saturday. However, most of the Quakers feel that this cloud has a silver lining.
Due to a tail wind of around 10 miles per hour, the final race times were reasonably fast, with Princeton finishing in 5:37.8 and the Quakers coming in at 5:41.3. More significant than those overall times is the narrow margin.
"I think we made a big step this week," sophomore Sean Cronin said, "We were able to push Princeton all the way to the line."
The problem once again for the Quakers proved to be a slow start, which has been costing them seats since the beginning of the season. Penn started off behind the Tigers but was able to start catching up around the 750-meter mark.
With only one race remaining in the season and Eastern Sprints approaching in a mere three weeks, the Quakers will need to work on improving their speed off the starting line, but the bulk of the race speaks to the improvement Penn has been making this season.
"We had a solid race and were pleased with our continuing improvement," sophomore Mike King said.
Of course, as Penn improves, so do the other crews in the league. As the close margin with Princeton indicates, Penn has gained a lot of speed since both they and the Tigers raced Rutgers. However, the margins across the board of the EARC were close this weekend.
"Yesterday was a big day around the league, because the race results proved just how close all the teams are," junior coxswain Mark Albert said.
When Sprints come, Penn will face a myriad of extremely competitive teams, with the Tigers appearing at the top of the list.
"Princeton is a great team and they gave us a great race," King said.
However, Penn's junior varsity eight and the freshmen eight was not as competitive the first boat.
The Quakers' second boat lost to the Tigers by a larger margin -- Penn finished in a time of 5:54.5 while Princeton finished in 5:47.2.
Princeton illustrated its depth this weekend, as its third boat finished in a time of 5:58.1, staying competitive with Penn's second boat.
The Penn freshmen also suffered a loss to the Tigers, losing by just under eight seconds to the Princeton crew.
"We're putting the Princeton race behind us and looking towards Navy next week," Penn assistant coach John Fife said.
However, Penn feels it can benefit from what the loss has taught it, and use that to its advantage next time.
"I definitely think this was a learning experience," Fife said. "The Princeton guys did a great job across the board."
