For 38 years they’ve been going at it on the Charles River. This year’s Head of the Charles Regatta was one in which both the Northeastern men’s and women’s crew teams shared success.

The men’s eight finished the race in third place, behind only Wisconsin and U.S. rowing. Wisconsin won the eastern sprints last year, and U.S. rowing is a team made up of the nation’s top rowers.

“I thought it was a very good weekend for us. We were the second collegiate crew to finish in the championship eight, and we were only half a second behind Wisconsin, the team that won the eastern sprints last year,” said men’s crew coach John Pojednic. “We were only seven seconds behind a U.S. Olympic team that won the bronze medal at the world championships last year. That gap is usually around 30 seconds, so I feel very good about this weekend and going forward from here.”

Coach Joe Wilhelm was also pleased with the way his women’s squad performed.

“We really went out and raced aggressively and I was proud of that. We had some good finishes and some not so good ones, but on the whole it was a good day for our team,” said Wilhelm. “We had our best finish in the championship eight, and two of the crews in front of us were the Canadian and American national teams so I was happy with that. Also, we had a freshman team race on Saturday that was the top college team to finish in that race. We’re excited about that as well.”

The NU women’s freshman four team also finished ahead of teams from Princeton and Syracuse, two top collegiate rowing programs. The women’s championship eight team took home sixth place in the race, but more importantly, finished ahead of Brown and Dartmouth.

“At the head of UConn, we finished behind Brown and Dartmouth. So when we beat them at the Head of the Charles, we were happy to see that. Women’s crew is a little different than the men’s such that the National championship at the end of the season is by invitational only. Last year we were right on the bubble to get invited and didn’t, so we feel strong about our performance and look forward to a good season,” Wilhelm said.

Coach Pojednic was also pleased with his team’s start, and expects them to be a player in the national scene as well.

“It’s an early signal, we don’t want to take much more out of it than we have to, but we expect to be among the best college crews come June,” he said.

The men’s program also had a freshman four team run, which finished third behind Princeton and Wisconsin.

“It was a strong race by our younger guys. Some of the slower crews in that race actually made them stop for about ten seconds which threw them off a bit, but I learned a lot about my team from that race in particular, and all of the races really,” Pojednic said. “I learned they’re guys with a lot of confidence and they do what they’re trained to do. I think it’s a challenge to row into a 20 mile per hour head wind for three miles, and it helps separate the better teams. If we work hard, condition, and train well it should pay off in the end.”