After a difficult weekend that saw the men’s crew team fall to the fourth-ranked University of Washington Huskies by almost two boat lengths at the Windermere Cup in Seattle, Northeastern hoped that the showing was more aberration than reality.

Unfortunately for the squad, last Saturday’s Eastern Sprint performance was valiant, but not enough to supplant some of the best teams in the nation.

Racing relatively close to home in Worcester, Mass., the Huskies finished seventh on Lake Quinsigamond.

“We had a really good race in the morning, but we were seated in a bad position,” said senior Mark Shamp. “We faced some of the top crews [in the nation] in the top heat, and ended up winning second level finals instead.”

Shamp was not kidding. Harvard and Brown entered that first heat as the second- and eighth-ranked teams in the nation. Boston University and Syracuse were no slouches either, coming into the event ranked 17th and 19th, respectively. The eighth-ranked Huskies, who had been a perpetual thorn in the Crimson’s side all season long, finished at 5:52.26, almost three seconds after top finisher Harvard, who took the race with a mark of 5:49.94. Brown finished second at 5:51.47. Northeastern did win the petite final, however, edging the Terriers with a time of 6:20.02.

Shamp knows that the team’s performance in Washington served as a wake-up call to he and his teammates.

“Since we raced Washington, we have turned it up a lot,” he said. “We had a really good race, as did Brown. We have been really working a lot harder since Washington, and the boat is really moving.”

Racing in Worcester did not hurt the Huskies; in fact, the weekend did nothing but strengthen the team outlook, according to Shamp.

“We’ve had a lot of good luck in Worcester,” he said. “We got in a race with two good teams; we just didn’t come out on the end.

“We know we can beat anybody. The national championships are three weeks away, and we’re pretty confident that we can beat everybody there.”

The countdown begins this weekend with Penn, which serves as an opportunity for the team for a higher seed in the championships. Still, Shamp is undeterred.

“We’re training pretty hard to try to get a better seating in the nationals,” he said. “No matter what seed we’re in, we’ll be in a lot better situation than most. We’re a lot faster than the other crews we raced.”