Hwt. Crew disappoints at ECACs

There were a lot of things the Penn heavyweight crew team had on its side going into the season-ending Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship Regatta in June.

But luck wasn't one of them.

The Quakers' bad luck put them in an extremely tough semifinal draw, which resulted in a fifth-place finish in that heat and a trip to the second-class Petite Final for the second straight year.

In the end, despite owning a No. 7 national ranking and the momentum from two straight victories leading into IRAs, Penn took ninth overall on the Cooper River in Camden, N.J., equalling its weakest performance in over 20 years.

The finish might have been higher if not for the semifinal heat seedings. The Quakers were put in a semifinal heat alongside four other teams ranked in the top nine nationally -- No. 3 Princeton, No. 4 Northeastern, No. 6 Washington and No. 9 Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, the other, comparatively weaker semifinal heat in the upper half included UC-Berkeley, Brown and four teams with double-digit national rankings.

Penn took fifth in its semifinal heat with a time of 5:57.62. Failing to make the top three in their tough draw, the Quakers were sent to compete in the Petite Final.

Penn coach Stan Bergman, however, refused to blame the draw.

"There were some really good crews in there, and we were just a little bit off," Bergman said. "Obviously we wanted to do better than that, but we didn't do it when we had to."

Failing to make the Grand Final took its toll on the morale of the Quakers, evident in their third-place finish in the Petite Final with a time of 5:45.73.

It certainly was not the outcome Penn had expected, as things started out well for the Quakers.

Penn's varsity eight boat took first place out of six teams with a time of 5:39.55 in the fourth and most competitive preliminary heat that windy morning. The win gave the Quakers an automatic bid to the next day's semifinal races.

"Our best performance [of the weekend] was in the very first race when we beat Northeastern by a bowball," Bergman said.

Penn's blazing time was the second fastest among all boats in the preliminary heats. Only Princeton's winning time of 5:37.37 in the third heat was faster.

Also joining Penn and Princeton in the upper half -- semifinals one and two -- with automatic bids were No. 1 University of California at Berkeley and No. 5 Brown.

The Golden Bears destroyed their competition in heat one, crossing the line more than six seconds ahead of second place. An equally lopsided result emerged from the second heat, in which the Bears from the East Coast also finished six seconds ahead of their closest foe.

The other 20 teams raced in reps later that day. First and second place in each of the four heats qualified for the upper half, while the other 12 teams were slated to compete in the consolation semifinals.

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