By Peter A. Martin
The men’s rowing team got its regular season schedule underway this weekend, sweeping Boston University to capture the Arlett Cup for the seventh time in eight years.
In the first race of the day, the Freshman 8 built a lead of nearly 20 seconds ahead of its counterpart from BU, winning its first dual race in impressive fashion.
The battle of the two Varsity 8’s was slightly more competitive with NU only winning by 15 seconds, but, again, as with the freshmen, the race was decided by the halfway point.
The Huskies’ Varsity 8 moved ahead of BU by the settle (about 25 strokes), had opened water by the 1,000-meter mark (about halfway) and didn’t look back, sprinting to the finish more than three open lengths ahead.
Northeastern has dominated the Arlett Cup in its history, and now holds a 23-8 record all-time in the series. The win also moves the Huskies to a 38-11 all-time record against BU.
All three boats from Northeastern finished within a few seconds of each other. The freshmen rowed the fastest time in 6:01.2, just two-tenths of a second ahead of the varsity.
The crews had flat water for the races, but a driving rain returned to the course throughout the morning, which could have affected the times.
“We won the race, but we never really got into a good rhythm,” said team captain Bill Benjamin.
The Varsity 8 finished the course 15 seconds slower than it did last weekend in the San Diego Crew Classic. A combination of weather and slower opposition possibly contributed to the drop off.
“We might be guilty of training past this weekend, toward some of the faster crews we will race this year,” Benjamin said.
One of those faster crews – Brown University – awaits the Huskies this weekend on the Charles.
Last weekend, the Brown Varsity 8 beat Harvard, last year’s top crew, according to the row2k.com poll. This weekly poll is the most trusted in the sport.
Brown and NU will meet this Saturday on the Charles at 9 a.m. to decide who will win this year’s Dreissigacker Cup, which the Huskies have not hoisted since 2004.
Northeastern will then meet Pennsylvania on the Schuykill River for the Burk Cup April 27.
