By Brian Pivonka
After a disappointing collapse at the end of last week’s Rowlands Cup, the Northeastern women’s crew team was on a mission to correct last week’s error.
Mission accomplished.
The Huskies were edged out last week by Boston College, placing them third in the Rowlands Cup. This week, however, Huskies coach Joe Wilhelm said he was pleased with the improvement his team showed taking first place in a four-team meet on the Charles River.
“I think the varsity eight rode a very poised, very mature race,” said Wilhelm. “They look like a very experienced crew. At the 1000 meter mark, Boston College and Dartmouth were very close. At the 50m mark, we were half a length ahead of Boston College and a full length ahead of Dartmouth. I think it was very important to win this one.”
After bowing out in the last 50m the week before against Boston College, the Huskies exacted some revenge by holding off the Eagles on Saturday 6:44.7 to 6:46.6. But Wilhelm said that it was still only one race.
“I don’t think this one had any extra meaning. We had to race BC again and the first three-quarters of the race was the same thing. Last week we didn’t execute well and this week we did.”
While Wilhelm said he enjoyed the victory, he warned that both BC and Dartmouth were quality opponents.
“I think that us and BC can race a lot and it would be close every week,” he said. “We have very even crews. Dartmouth is a good crew, but they have a late spring. They do a lot more land training and haven’t logged the miles that we have. They’re a late blooming crew. We’ll see them again at Eastern Sprints.”
Still, even with the victory, Wilhelm cautioned that his team still needed to improve.
“There’s always something (to improve on),” he said. “We need to get started a little better. We really didn’t assert ourselves until halfway through the race. There are a lot of technical things we have to work on and our timing has to be a little sharper.”
For captain Amy Lawrence, time is the Huskies best friend.
“As the year progresses you find things to work on,” said Lawrence. “Your competition gets better and you need to find things that make you faster.”
The novice race was another close race for the Huskies, but this time they couldn’t pull it out, falling to Dartmouth by two seconds in the opening race.
“The Nnvice eight had a good race,” Wilhelm said. “Similar to varsity, they were slow but came on in the second half. I think once our novice crew works on their start more, they’ll get better. We have time to work on that.”
In the second varsity race, the Huskies started off fast, but tailed off quickly and finished fourth, losing to Dartmouth by 20 seconds.
“Second crew just the opposite (of the novice crew),” Wilhelm said. “(They) had a good start, got into their race cadence and were a little sluggish. For 700-800 meters we had a good race. I think we have to race a little tougher in the middle of the race, good crews maintain their speed.”
The Huskies’ next race is Saturday on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia against the University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse University.
Men’s crew
The men’s crew team started off their season on a high note this past Saturday and Sunday.
Competing in the Copley Cup at the San Diego Crew Classic in Mission Bay, Calif., the Huskies finished second in the heats, and then second in the finals, losing only to the University of California.
Washington took the win over Northeastern in Heat B, as their time of 5:54.8 edged the Huskies’ 5:55.99.
California, the winner of Heat A at 5:58.6, took the grand finals with a time of 6:09.4. The Huskies, coming in next at 6:11.93, pulled ahead of Washington (6:17.93) for the second-place overall finish.
Temple (6:22.08), Oregon State (6:24.97) and Stanford (6:27.69) rounded out the finishers in the finals.
The Huskies will next compete on Saturday in the Arlett Cup against Boston University on the Charles River.
— Jeff Powalisz of News Staff contributed the men’s crew portion of this report.
