The men’s crew team walked directly into the fire last weekend, competing against the University of Washington on the Montlake Cut in Seattle, on the school’s 100th anniversary of rowing.

With sunny skies and tens of thousands of people there to soak in the festivities, NU placed second in the Windermere Cup behind Washington (5:54.87), and ahead of the Polish national team (6:05.47) with a time of 6:01.97 minutes.

Coach John Pojednic was proud of how his men acted under such intimidating circumstances.

“We really were walking into the lions den,” he said. “But I’m happy we went out there. We beat a foreign national team and that’s a good result for a college crew.”

However, Pojednic wasn’t pleased with the lane assignment given to NU on the 2,000-meter course.

“We had a really good race, but the course was kind of weird,” he said. “We were going to their home course, and there was definitely some rougher water in our lane. That was a bit of a disadvantage.”

Another disadvantage for Northeastern is the climate on the East coast.

“Washington is a crew that’s on the water year-round,” Pojednic said. “We’ve only been on the water for three weeks, so we’ve got some ways to go whereas Washington is basically at their top speed.

Northeastern arrived on Thursday to prepare for Saturday’s race in a foreign environment.

“Being somewhere new didn’t affect us at all,” Pojednic said. “The guys were comfy and handled it very well. We practiced Thursday and Friday morning and were ready to go Saturday.”

NU’s freshman boat took third behind Washington and the University of Oregon, but again ahead of Poland.

Next week Northeastern heads to Worcester for the Eastern Sprints, where Pojednic is confident that his crew will perform well.

“The guys are just excited to race anybody,” Pojednic said. “We’ll see some good boats this weekend (Harvard, Wisconsin, Dartmouth, US Navel Academy, Brown, Cornell, Princeton), but I think we’re better than most of them.”

As for fourth-ranked Washington, Pojednic looks forward to meeting the West coast Huskies again at the national championship on May 29-31 on the Cooper River in New Jersey.

“I think all we need to beat them is three more weeks of rowing and a fair course,” he said. “Our whole season is focused on the national championship, and we’ll get our chance to beat UW then. It’s a foreign course for everyone; there’s no ‘home-course’ advantage there.”

Sunday’s Eastern Sprints are held on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Mass.