Rowers look for second sweep

Coming off a victorious opening meet last weekend, the Penn men’s lightweight rowing team hopes its performance — and ranking — will carry over.

The No. 8 Quakers will take on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dartmouth tomorrow morning on the Charles River Basin in Cambridge, Mass.

In the Red and Blue’s only meet this spring, all three of their varsity boats defeated opponents No. 10 Delaware and Marietta.

Still, first-year coach Nick Baker sees plenty of room for improvement.

“We’re obviously happy with the results we achieved [in our last meet],” he said. “But by performing better in the mental aspect of racing, we can execute at a higher level.”

When the Quakers faced M.I.T. on the Schuylkill last May, they won in both their varsity 8 and novice 8 races.

But Baker knows that history offers no future guarantees.

“They seem to be a squad that gets better and better each year,” Baker said of the No. 12 Engineers. “We’ll have to limit our technical mistakes out there to compete with them.”

Tomorrow’s meet will be Dartmouth’s first of the spring season. The No. 11 Big Green hope to use their momentum from a spring training trip to start the season favorably for first-year coach Dan Roock.

Though new at Dartmouth, Roock’s illustrious career dates back to 1984, when he became an assistant at the Florida Institute of Technology.

“The man’s been coaching longer than I’ve been alive,” Baker said of Roock. “It will be more than interesting to see what he can bring to that team.”

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