Snow chills Penn’s chances in Boston

The snow began to fall as the Penn men’s lightweight rowing team crossed the finish line at Sunday’s Head of the Charles in Boston.

Unfortunately for the Quakers, this was not the beginning of the day’s bad weather.

Cold and rainy conditions plagued the event, leaving Penn to battle the elements while facing stiff competition. With a time of 16:22.99, the Quakers finished in 15th place at the highly esteemed rowing regatta on the Charles River.

The Red and Blue had one boat compete at the regatta, consisting of sophomore Mike Fisher, juniors Paul Shay, Adam Neinstein, Brad Adams and Will Cooper and seniors Nathan Keane, Peter Ciullo and David Mannion, and junior coxswain Jason Bernstein.

Twenty-one teams in total competed in the lightweight eight race. With a time of 15:28.29, New York Athletic Club finished in first place.

“We expected to do a little better; we were hopeful we would do better,” Penn coach Nick Baker said. “We were in 10th at the first mark, which is about where we expected to finish. We fell apart a little bit over the rest of the race.”

Although they finished before Yale’s second varsity boat, the Dartmouth boats and two boats from Harvard, Baker and his team had hoped for more.

“We were disappointed because we feel we didn’t give a true representation of what we’ve been doing in practice,” Baker said. “Hopefully this weekend, at the Princeton Chase, which is essentially a League race, we will have a better showing.”

The Penn men’s heavyweight rowing team also competed at the Head of the Charles Sunday afternoon. In addition to battling the rough weather conditions, they raced racing against some of the nation’s best boats.

The Red and Blue brought two boats to the prestigious race, competing in the championship fours and eights.

Penn placed 16th in the championship fours, out of 19 teams competing. Junior coxswain Lawrence Tanzman led senior Tim Simon and sophomores Kevin Kennedy, Loren Mead and Grant Wilson. The five finished in 17:59.50, enough to beat Georgetown, Minnesota and George Washington. With a time of 16:28.29, Wisconsin’s boat won the race.

The Quakers placed 25th in the championship eights, finishing in 15:37.80. In total, 37 teams competed. Coxswain Halley Sloane led the Quakers’ boat. Although their time was not good enough to beat Ivy foes Brown, Harvard and Yale, they did finish before Princeton and Columbia.

Heavyweight coach Greg Myhr was unavailable for comment.

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