By Ryan Cloutier, News Staff
Despite bouncing back for a victory last weekend in San Diego, the men’s rowing team was unable to carry the momentum forward, falling to Boston University by nearly eight seconds on Saturday and losing the Arlett Cup.
The crew team is racing with just one coxswain, after starting the season with four.
BU was able to take the advantage early, taking a four-seat lead over the first quarter of the 2000-meter Charles River course. The Terriers’ crescendo widened its distance just after passing under the Massachusetts Avenue bridge, a lead they were able to build upon until Northeastern got its rhythm back under control.
Within the final 1000 meters, the Huskies were able to regain their rhythm and match BU stroke for stroke to keep them from further gains. The final time for BU was 6:01.9 while the Huskies crossed the line at 6:09.4.
“I thought our varsity and freshmen crews raced really hard,” head coach John Pojednic said. “There are a couple things we can adjust, maybe the rhythm.”
This loss marks only the 12th time in program history BU has been able to beat the Huskies on the Charles. The all-time record between the two teams stands at 40-12. The Arlett Cup record still stands with Northeastern having nearly double the victories as BU at 25-9.
The loss also marks the first time since 2007 that the Arlett Cup goes back to Commonwealth Avenue. The cup’s namesake is Northeastern University Athletics Department hall of famer George Ernest Arlett, whom the athletics department inducted in in 1976 for his accomplishments in crew.
Arlett coached at Oxford, Rutgers and Harvard before coming to Northeastern in 1964. A year later, he coached the Huskies to a Small College Championship, which gained the team invitations to the IRA Regatta and the Henley Royal Regatta.
In 1972 and 1973, Arlett coached the team to appearances in the Eastern Sprints laurels and in the Henley Royal regatta where they battled to the finals of the Grand Challenge Cup and gained widespread fame despite losing to Russian crews. After its 1973 season, international circles considered Northeastern’s team “the finest eight in the United States.”
Arlett brought further prominence to Northeastern rowing when he became the United States Sculling coach for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. Sculling is a type of rowing in which the rower operates two oars, one in each hand on both sides of the boat, as opposed to sweep rowing where the rower uses both hands to operate a single on either the port or starboard side.
Northeastern also raced two freshmen boats against BU on Saturday although both lost.
The first freshmen boat rowed a closer race than the second, also posting a faster time than the varsity boat. BU’s first freshmen led across the finish line with a time of 6:02.2 while the Huskies’ boat crossed just over a second later at 6:03.6.
The second freshmen fared far worse with BU leading into the finish with a time of 6:19.9 and Northeastern over 20 seconds behind them at 6:41.6.
“We’re a couple years behind BU in terms of what we can do with recruiting,” Pojednic said.
This Saturday, the Huskies will make the trip to face Brown, who the Terriers defeated by seven seconds April 2. The series, called the Dreissigacker Cup, currently sits at a Brown advantage 25-20 and Brown has won the last five meetings; however, the Huskies set the record time on Brown’s home Seekonk River at 5:27.8 in 2005.
