The season for the Penn varsity men's heavyweight and lightweight crew teams came to a close last weekend, as the Quakers traveled to face all of the elite rowing squads in the nation in one place. The men's heavyweight and lightweight crew teams competed in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges Sprint Championships last weekend, on Lake Quinisigamond in Worcester, Mass.
While the varsity eight boats struggled against some of the top competition in the nation, the novice boats performed strongly in both the heavyweight and lightweight divisions.
Penn's heavyweight varsity eight finished sixth in the Petite Final with a time of 6:00.97. Although the Quakers were able to finish under six minutes in the heats, they were unable to pull it out in the day's final races, finishing last out of 12 teams competing.
Harvard clinched first place among the varsity heavyweights, winning the Grand Final with a time of 5:42.85.
The lightweight varsity eight boat finished fifth in its Petite Final, with a time of 6:06.36. Although the fifth-place finish was only good for 11th place overall, the Quakers came very close to finishing higher, as Delaware, Rutgers, Dartmouth and Columbia all finished within three seconds of the Red and Blue.
Penn was able to defeat MIT, which finished 10 seconds behind the Quakers' varsity eight.
"It was a tough way to end the season in terms of our finish," sophomore lightweight rower Tim Mahoney said. "But it was good that we had one of our best performances internally, we just didn't come out on top."
Navy secured first place overall in the varsity lightweight eight competition, defeating Harvard in the Grand Final by two-and-a-half seconds.
The second varsity lightweight eight boat finished first in its Petite Final, with a time of 6:16.61. The second boat was able to defeat more teams than its Quakers counterpart, including boats from Ivy rivals Columbia and Dartmouth.
Unlike most of the spring's sprint races, in which the Quakers were pitted against one or two teams, the EARCs featured all of the nation's rowing powerhouses.
The EARC Sprints "was a stronger pool of boats than most of the spring sprint races," Mahoney said. "It was good to see that we could put up one of our better performances on the year ... the conditions were pretty good for it."
Unfortunately, the Quakers failed to earn a berth to the International Rowing Association Regatta in Camden, N.J., at the end of May. Penn failed to earn a spot by placing lower than seventh in both the heavyweight and lightweight divisions.
