By By Kirby Morrison, News Correspondent

The men’s and women’s crew teams finished fifth and sixth respectively in the Eastern Sprints in Worcester the past two weekends. The squads performed according to their seeding as the men entered the event seeded fifth with the women seeded sixth.
The men finished in the top third of the Eastern Sprints May 10 after completing the Lake Quinsigamond course in Worcester with a time of 5:50.84. Rough weather gave teams trouble throughout the race.
‘[The conditions] were flat out terrible,’ said men’s coach John Pojednic, citing sustained winds of 20 miles per hour and gusts up to 45 miles per hour.
Amidst the challenge from mother nature, Brown University won the event with a time of 5:41.36, finishing ahead of Harvard, Cornell, Northeastern, Boston University and last year’s champion, Wisconsin. Despite the unfavorable weather, the Huskies were able to match their fifth place finish from a year ago.
The Huskies will finish the season June 4 to 6 in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) championship in Sacramento, Calif., on Lake Natoma. The IRA championship, widely considered as the national championship for collegiate rowing, dates back to 1895. The Huskies were happy to have performed well at the Eastern Sprints, allowing them to qualify for nationals, Pojednic said.
‘We did what we needed to do; we went and qualified for Nationals,’ he said.
The Huskies finished fourth last year and are looking for their first IRA title since 1991. The only other year the team won an IRA title was 1988.
On May 17, the women took to the Cooper River in Camden, N.J., finishing the course in 6:40.85 and taking sixth overall. The Huskies, who finished 12th last year, advanced to the Grand Final after finishing second in their morning heat. In the Grand Final, the women finished behind Yale, Radcliffe, Princeton, Dartmouth and last year’s champion, Brown. Yale won the event with a time of 6:21.95, marking its third victory since 2005.
‘We went into this weekend focusing on having our best race on Sunday morning, knowing that we’d really have to perform at our highest level to get into the [Grand Final],’ women’s coach Joe Wilhelm said. ‘We had a really good race in the [morning heat], but I’ll tell you, we raced as hard as we could. It was a really tight race.’ ‘
While the men have their eyes on the IRA championship in June, the Eastern Sprints marks the end of a very successful season for the women’s crew which included winning the first ever Colonial Athletic Association championship.
Wilhelm reflected on the 2009 season and looked forward to 2010.
‘I was pleased with the season overall because we continued to get better,’ Wilhelm said. ‘That sums up our team in one sentence, they continued to get better over the season, they worked hard and were very coachable. We have a good core of this group coming back. I think we’ll have a strong squad next year.’
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