By Ryan Cloutier, News Staff and Kristen McCleary, News Correspondent

The women’s rowing team is plowing through the spring season with several great finishes.

The Huskies raced against Boston University and University of Louisville in the first round of the Charles River Challenge Saturday, taking home the top spots in the first and third varsity eight races and another first place in the varsity four race. The NU second varsity eight came in a tough third place in their race.

“I feel like all of the boats have worked really hard, and it’s showing in our racing,” freshman rower Stephanie Kley said.

The Huskies battled tough weather conditions with wind and rain and even tougher teams in the second round of the Charles Challenge Sunday. Three varsity eights and one varsity four went up against Radcliffe, Ohio State and Dartmouth.

The varsity one and two boats fought through the weather to finish fourth in both of their races. The varsity three boat continued it’s winning streak and captured first place a full 20 seconds ahead of Radcliffe. The varsity four finished in a solid third, 25 seconds behind winner Ohio State.

“To go from last year to this year where we’re crushing it, it’s definitely awesome,” sophomore coxswain Leslie Montag said. “It’s cool to see the improvements and getting done what needs to be done to win.”

The team members said they chalk their success up to a lot of time and hard work, dedication, excellent coaching and a great team dynamic.

“It’s great to see all of the hard work paying off because we really do dedicate a lot of our time to the sport,” freshman rower Christina Bivona said. “It’s great to see our improvement over the season. It’s such an amazing group of girls, and the coaching staff is so supportive and pushes us to do our best.”

The team relationship is a huge part of successful rowing.

“Training for rowing is so hard and because it’s so hard a support system is important,” coach Miranda Paris said. “A support system that really resembles a family helps support them through the ups and downs of balancing school and training trust is absolutely necessary in making boats go fast.”

The Huskies look to triumph in the Colonial Athletic Association championships in Virginia April 23, then return April 30 to its home Charles River Course for the Beanpot races against Radcliffe, MIT and Boston University.

“We’re working really hard this week, were not going to let up at all,” Paris said. “We have a lot going for us; we’ve had a really good season and were just going to continue working hard all the way to the finish line.”

The men’s rowing team faced another tumultuous weekend Saturday with the freshmen boat taking the victory against Brown for the time in a decade by nearly five seconds, but the Dreissigacker Cup is not coming back to Huntington Avenue.

Brown defeated the varsity Huskies by nearly 10 seconds for their sixth straight Dreissigacker Cup win.

The boats were even through 750 meters, but an increase in pace by Brown and a loss of rhythm by Northeastern led to Brown holding a 7-seat lead at the 1,000 meter mark.

Brown kept up the pressure, resulting in them gaining an open water lead by 1500 meters.
The Huskies continued to falter through the end of the race and Brown won by three lengths.

“It’s definitely tough to keep composure in a race while another team is walking, but our year isn’t centered around this one dual race. It’s about building boat speed throughout the season until IRAs,” team captain Lou Harwood said. “We tried our hardest, but we didn’t start flailing around when they walked on us.”

Brown crossed the finish at 5:32.5, while NU posted a time of 5:42.1. Brown has seen six straight
victories since the Huskies last held the Dreissigacker Cup in 2005, putting the all-time record between the two teams at 26-20 in Brown’s favor.

“I don’t think it was a bad loss,” associate head coach Ted Benford said. “We lost some of the rhythm and fell off in the second thousand [meters].”

Brown named the Dreissigacker cup for alumnus and former Olympian Richard A. “Dick” Dreissigacker, who graduated from the ivy-league university in 1969 and saw induction into its hall of fame in 1985.

The freshman boat fared far better on the Seekonk River than the Varsity, beating the Brown freshmen by nearly five seconds.

The two freshmen boats were even through 800 but a quickened pace by the Huskies led to a four-seat lead at 1,000 meters. Another move by Northeastern at the 1,500-meter mark allowed the team to increase its lead to a boat-length that they were able to hold over the final 500 meters to win.

The Huskies crossed the finish at 5:37.2, with the Brown boat crossing shortly behind them at 5:42.0.

Both teams faced off in fair weather that Benford referred to as “the best conditions on the East Coast.”

“Brown’s a strong crew this year with a deep program,” Harwood said. “The freshmen did an outstanding job this past weekend with their victory. They’ve worked very hard this year and have definitely earned [the victory].”