Despite a subpar showing at this weekend's Head of the Charles Regatta, one of the world's largest two-day rowing events, the Penn women's crew team continues to be optimistic.
"I don't think we were thrilled with our performance," said senior captain Mary Murphy, who did not compete this weekend. "But we know we can do better than that. It wasn't a disappointment."
The Quakers placed 27th out of 40 boats in the championship eights at the famed rowing event with a time of 17:12.18, less than a second behind Northeastern. For Penn coach Barb Kirch Grudt, the race was a step in the right direction.
"The kids raced very hard the whole way, held off teams behind, and executed very well," she said.
The Head of the Charles Regatta, held this weekend over three miles of Boston's Charles River, featured some of the world's premier national and collegiate teams. Included among the participants were U.S. and Canadian national teams.
The Canadian National Team finished first with a time of 15:31.08, more than 18 seconds ahead of the second-place U.S. National Team. Yale was the first collegiate team to finish, placing fourth overall with a time of 16:08.26, followed in the collegiate standings by Princeton, which finished in sixth overall, and Brown in seventh.
"They set a standard," junior Megan Keane said, regarding the international teams that competed at the regatta. "They are the ideal for us to work towards."
In recent practices the Quakers stressed technique. Despite their mediocre performance, Keane believes that the training has started to pay off.
"We were working on technique," Keane said. "We started to see results in the race and over the next week we hope to improve even more on that."
Grudt applauded her team for the skillful advancements it has made throughout the year, improvements she believed were evident in this weekend's race.
"It's the greatest test of whether or not you've learned the technical aspects of rowing to apply it to that distance," Grudt said. "Competition is where you work on automatic behavior based on how you've trained. It is a real tribute to what they've learned."
Penn senior Susan Francia recognizes that the Quakers need to work on their overall strength, and that power will be a point of interest during winter training.
"Over the winter break it'll be important that we focus on doing well in sprints," Francia said. "We have to get a lot stronger over the winter session."
"We're just going to keep working on our technique and power application," Keane added. "We must be more powerful in putting the oar through the water."
Grudt focused on the mental toughness of the team, noting that next weekend's Princeton Chase represents a great opportunity to prepare the Quakers for the future.
"I'm looking for three eights in our program, not just one, to perform and race hard under pressure and be competitive the whole way," she said.
