By Bradley Rosenberg
The varsity boat of the women’s crew got tripped up by Ivy Leaguers Brown and Yale this weekend, coming in third. Racing on the Housatonic River in Derby, Connecticut, Brown bagged first with a time of 6:22.1, Yale came in behind them with a time of 6.27.3, and Northeastern crossed the finish line at 6:42.8.
Coach Joe Wilhelm said that the great difference in finishing time between the NU crew and the Ivy crews came because of the level of competition in the race, and because of an overtly-ambitious pre-game plan.
“We raced hard,” Wilhelm said. “We knew they were very fast crews and that, in order for us to beat them, we had to go outside of ourselves. I think we did do that at first, but we couldn’t keep the pace. We rode a very aggressive race, but not a very smart race.”
Still, Wilhelm believes that his crew did the right thing.
“If the goal was to row our best time, we would have rowed a different race,” he said. “Our goal was to beat those teams. We wanted to keep up with them.”
The junior varsity finished in the same situation that the varsity did. In that race, Brown got first place with a time of 6:34.8, Yale rode in on Brown’s tail at 6:36.9, and Northeastern came along at 6:52.7.
Again, Wilhelm said the team’s time suffered due to a lack of consistent pace.
“They went out hard,” he says, “but they couldn’t maintain the speed.”
Wilhelm believes the reason both varsity and junior varsity had such similar results was because “they’ve been trained the exact same way.”
The novice boat had a better outing than the other teams, placing second behind Brown with a time of 6:31.7, but still suffered their first “loss” to another crew since the season began. Wilhelm is proud of them, though.
“They had a great race at Yale,” he said. “It’s difficult to race on a river you’ve never seen before, a river the team you’re competing against practices on every day. Our novices did a great job handling that.”
Brown may have been able to sweep NU, but Wilhelm is not disheartened. Instead of becoming discouraged, he has decided to change the way he looks at racing them.
“We’re racing at a certain level,” he said. “What I realized this weekend is that we’re racing crews that are above that level. Brown and Yale, they’re flying out there. Our goal is to get in the finals with them, and, I would never sell these athletes short, because I think they’re very capable of doing that.
“I try to have the team have the mentality that I have: we will race anywhere, anyplace, anytime. We want to race the best schools in the nation because, in the end, it makes you better. I wanted to race this race. It opened our crew’s eyes to the fact that there’s a whole other level above what they’re doing. We needed to see that.”
Now that they see that, Wilhelm said, the team is looking towards next week as a test for what they learned this week.
“We’re going to do the same thing this weekend,” Wilhelm said. “We’re going to row our best and see if our best is good enough. Radcliffe is another team on the same level with Brown and Yale. What’s great about this sport, though, is that, when you line up on the water, everything is even.”
NU will meet Radcliffe in the Rowlands Cup on the Charles River this weekend. The first race begins at 8:20 a.m. on Saturday.
