After a five-month hiatus from competition, the men's heavyweight and lightweight rowing teams will return to action next weekend.
The heavyweight team will be heading off to Redwood Shores, Calif. for the Windermere Classic on April 2. The Quakers will face some stiff competition, including California -- one of the top programs in the nation -- as well as Northeastern, Navy, Stanford and Purdue.
The heavyweights will get to find out how much they have progressed since November.
"In the fall, we tried to get everyone rowing on the same page," Penn heavyweight coach Stan Bergman said. "We finished fifth at the Princeton Chase and saw good improvement."
Since then, the Red and Blue has been hard at work, although not just in Philadelphia. The team's winter training included a trip to Deland, Fla., which is 15 miles west of Daytona Beach.
"We had great weather and trained twice a day," Bergman said. "It was one of the better training camps we've selected."
At the end of last season, the heavyweights elected current senior John Straus as captain and classmate Stuart Harty as commodore. Straus and Harty will lead a team that has "very good chemistry," according to Bergman.
"Our toughness and our attitude towards racing are the strong points of the team," Bergman added.
For the lightweight team, competition resumes on April 3 at the Lev Brett Cup against host Rutgers. The regatta will begin later than usual, around 4 p.m., because of the tide at New Brunswick, N.J.
In last year's match, Rutgers edged Penn by less than a second.
"It came down to a couple tenths of a second last year," lightweight head coach Mike Irwin said. "I know they'll be ready to race again this year and I expect a close, tightly-fought race."
Instead of a training trip this winter, the lightweight team trained on campus during spring break.
"We trained twice a day," Irwin said. "We vamped things up, and our focus was to get the most out of our week. We managed to get in some quality work."
The Quakers ended the fall season with a fourth-place finish at the Princeton Chase.
"We were pleased with that result, but we still had some work to do," Irwin said.
Since then, the Red and Blue has been spending six hours a week on strength training, including work on the ergometer -- the indoor rowing machine which "quantifies how fast you get," according to Irwin.
This season's squad is led by team captain David Read, and commodore Mike King -- both seniors.
"The exciting thing about this year is the competition within the team," Irwin said. "We are much more competitive than some I've seen in the past. The guys are constantly pushing each other for seats on both boats."
