By Travis Gschrey, News Correspondent
The Northeastern men’s rowing team started the 2014 season off strong this past weekend, taking 11 of 12 races at the Pennsylvania Invitational in Philadelphia.
The event began Friday afternoon, as all four Northeastern varsity eight squads took on George Washington University. The varsity eight race was the first of the day, with Northeastern posting a time of 6:55.8. This gave the team a victory of nearly 15 seconds, despite choppy conditions that would only worsen throughout the day.
The second varsity team performed nearly as well, posting a 6:58.1 time, as opposed to George Washington’s 7:24.5. The third and fourth teams competed in Northeastern’s final race of the day, both finishing ahead of George Washington’s top freshmen squad.
The action picked up again Saturday morning, as Northeastern took on the University of Pennsylvania in the 45th edition of the Burk Cup. The race lived up to its history, with a winning margin of only 2.4 seconds. Unfortunately, it was Penn that came away with the victory, its second in the last 13 matchups.
“Losing the Burk Cup to Penn is obviously disappointing, however, the history of that race is one of a great rivalry between two strong teams, and one which usually changes hands through the course of the season,” head coach John Pojednic told GoNU.com. “It’s very early in the year and we have had little water time. While we are carrying high expectations into the year, I’m not sure we have all of the right people in the right places yet and I’m not sure we were ready to put our best foot forward this past weekend.”
The rest of the day went on to produce a perfect record for Northeastern. The second, third, and fourth teams all defeated Penn, and the Huskies went on to sweep all four races against Drexel University in the afternoon. This included excellent races for the second varsity team, defeating Penn by 0.9 seconds and Drexel by 4.4.
“I was proud of the entire team’s effort this weekend — winning 11 of 12 2000-meter races in one weekend says a lot about a program’s overall strength,” Pojednic told GoNU.com. The “overall strength” was particularly evident in the third and fourth teams, who went a perfect 6-0 on the weekend, winning every race by more than five seconds.
With the varsity squad sitting at 2-1 in this young season, Northeastern will resume play this weekend, April 5-6, at the San Diego Crew Classic.
“All of the crews have plenty of room to improve,” Pojednic told GoNU.com. “I look forward to working the squad this week and moving some people around as we prepare for the San Diego Crew Classic next weekend.”
