In many aspects, lightning struck twice for Northeastern on Saturday. Unfortunately, many of those jolts were of the negative variety.
Northeastern defeated Boston College for the second straight week last Saturday on the Charles despite difficult weather conditions. The weather was so bad, in fact, that it kept both Dartmouth and Buffalo from attending the race.
“All hell broke loose when Dartmouth couldn’t come,” said Northeastern coach Joe Wilhelm. “Then Buffalo couldn’t attend, and things just snowballed from there.
“It’s not just a bus when you travel to a meet. You tow a 65-foot trailer in the snow, and many thing could happen. If it’s fully loaded, you’ve got $200,000 worth of equipment. People don’t travel well [in the snow].”
The conditions cut the head-to-head matchup from a 2000-meter race to a 1400-meter powerhouse stretch. The varsity crew built up a good lead within the first 1000 meters, but a focused Eagle squad made a race of it in the last 400. Northeastern hung on for the win, finishing at 4:51.2. Boston College came in at 4:52.8. As was the case last week, the Huskies were unable to increase their intensity.
“The goal this race was to race more aggressively, and I don’t think we did that,” Wilhelm said. “When you take that we were training for a 2000-meter race, it’s like taking a miler and running 800-meters today. We didn’t respond to it at all.”
Wilhelm lauded BC’s performance, but was noticeably more concerned with his team’s showing, or lack thereof, in light of the unforeseen alterations to the event.
“We have a lot of respect for BC; they are a good crew,” he said. “The girls expected one thing, and it turned into a 1000 meter race against one school. A mature crew should have been able to step up and handle it, and we didn’t.
“I give all the credit to BC. They saw their opportunity; all they had to do was sprint like crazy, and they knew they could keep up with us. The crew just came out flat, racing BC again.”
Next week’s race against Penn and Syracuse could prove to be a true gauge of the team’s fortunes for the rest of the season.
“[Penn and Syracuse] are two good crews, and our performance this week is going to start to tell us where we are,” Wilhelm said. “Most of those crews will range from middle-of-the-road to bubble crews. If we finish ahead of them, then that puts us with the top 10 crews in the country.”
May the third time be a charm on Lake Onondaga.
