Open weight crew completes undefeated regular season

This weekend, while the rest of campus was busy preparing for lawnparties, the men's and women's crew teams were busy wrapping up their regular seasons in style. Saturday morning's regatta marked the last home race of the season and a tuneup before Eastern Sprints for both squads.

On the men's side of the race, they won where it mattered. The heavyweight varsity eight placed first with a time of five minutes, 36.6 seconds. Brown finished nearly seven seconds behind with a time of 5:43.8.

"The win felt pretty good," sophomore Steve Coppola said. "We were just trying to pick up speed before [Eastern Sprints]."

The men's second varsity boat was also able to claim victory, albeit by a closer margin, as they finished at 5:50.3. The Bears came in just behind at 5:54.4. In addition, the men's third varsity also raced to a time of 6:05.3.

Despite seeing success at the varsity level, the heavyweight novice boats were not as lucky. The top freshman boat finished at 5:49.0, behind Browns' top novice boat which recorded a time of 5:45.2.

The men's heavyweight second freshman boat also fell to defeat, crossing the finish line, at 6:12.4, well behind the Bears who placed first at 6:02.1.

While the heavyweights were busy competing against Brown, the lightweights took on Harvard and Yale in a battle for the Goldthwait Cup. In the fastest race of the day, the Tigers placed in third with a time of 5:48.2 – 11 seconds behind the first place Crimson and seven behind the Bulldogs.

Harvard and Yale finished with times of 5:37.6 and 5:41.3, respectively.

The defending Eastern's champion lightweight men continued with their mediocre performances in all the other races of the day.

In the second varsity eight, Princeton (5:48.6) raced to a close second place. It finished mere seconds behind Harvard (5:46.1). Both teams finished well ahead of a Bulldog boat that clocked in at 5:54.6.

In the varsity four division, Harvard's A boat took first at 6:44.3. It was followed by Princeton (6:52.9), Harvard B squad (6:55.6) and Yale (7:00.7).

In the tightest race of the day, the Crimson freshmen (5:47.4) finished one second in front of the Tigers (5:48.5). Yale (5:57.1) placed a distant third.

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Although the regatta was not as successful as the Tigers would have hoped, they still feel good heading into Eastern Sprints.

"Obviously we want to win," Coppola said of Easterns. "We expect nothing less. We'll go out there and row as hard as we can and try to win it."

On the women's side, the story was much brighter. This weekend, the open weight women competed against the Fordham Rams and the George Washington Colonials.

In the varsity eight race, the No.1 ranked women ran their current winning streak to 11 as they finished at 6:16.5 – 23 seconds ahead of their nearest competitor. GWU (6:39.7) finished second, while Fordham (6:40.2) finished last.

With the win, it marked the completion of an undefeated season for the open weights.

"We put in a lot of hard work," sophomore Kristin McMenamin said. "It feels really good to see the results."

In every other open weight race of the day, the women finished in first. In the second varsity eight race, the Tigers finished at 6:38.0 – well in front of Fordham (7:03.3) and GWU (7:07.2).

In the varsity four race, it was Princeton (7:41.2), followed by Fordham B (7:53.5) and Fordham A (7:55.3).

On the novice level, Princeton (6:32.9) triumphed over the Colonials (7:03.2).

Women's crew success also carried over to the lightweights as they triumphed over Bucknell in an Eastern's tuneup. The Tigers finished at 6:46.2. Bucknell followed up in second at 7:03.9. The women's team will hope that their success over the weekend will continue at Eastern's where the stakes are raised.

"We think we can have a strong showing," McMenamin said. "We've had a pretty good year so far."