Lightweight Crew takes two regattas in two days

As the fall season nears its end, the men's lightweight and women's crew teams tried to use a rare back-to-back race opportunity to help send the teams into winter training on a high note.

After the Princeton Chase regatta on Lake Carnegie on Sunday, both teams would claim they did just that.

The men's lightweight A boat finished first in the 2.75-mile head race just a day after a victory at the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta. Yale and Navy, who finished one-two among non-club teams at the Head of the Charles last weekend, were both within six seconds of the Quakers, with the Midshipmen narrowly edging out the Elis.

When Penn drew a spot right in between the two teams, the team's mindset became a formula for victory.

"Our race mentality was that we need to make sure Yale doesn't catch us and Navy doesn't get away from us," Penn coach Mike Irwin said. "If we did we knew we had a chance to come out on top."

The real challenge came when the Elis gained on Penn during the first mile. It was the Quakers' mental toughness that allowed them to hold Yale off for the rest of the long race, making their move at the course's sharpest turn with about a mile to go.

"We sort of buckled down and followed our game plan of going faster each mile," senior captain Tim Mahoney said.

Mahoney also noted that there was an extra incentive for their opposition because Penn had been named Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges Lightweight Crew of the Year the week before.

The heavyweight men's eight finished fourth Sunday at the Princeton Chase, while the host Tigers thoroughly distanced themselves from the field to win.

While an 18th place finish for the women's A boat in the Open Eight category is not as impressive a showing as the lightweight team's victory, the Quakers would not hesitate to call the race a success.

"I think that as a whole our team had a good showing at the Chase," senior captain Zoe Reich said. "This race can be used as a gauging point to see how much work we have cut out for us."

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