Penn coach Greg Myhr and his men’s heavyweight rowing team entered Saturday’s meet with a new strategy in mind.
“We tried to press as hard as we could for the first minute,” Myhr said. “We had been talking about the new idea all week.”
And yet, the Quakers ended up placing third in the race for the Blackwell Cup, dropping all but one of their races — the Novice 8 — to two top-ranked opponents.
No. 7 Yale claimed the Blackwell Cup for the first time since 2007, while No.12 Columbia finished as runner-up.
Penn’s lightweight team was also in action Saturday morning in the Schuylkill River, and it saw similar results.
The Quakers managed to place second in each of the four lightweight races, but fell to Yale, allowing the Bulldogs to win the Dodge Cup for the 31st time in the last 33 years.
Yale defeated the Red and Blue by 2.5 seconds in the Varsity 8 race — and the cup standings were decided by just that much.
“We had pretty good results across the board,” men’s lightweight coach Nick Baker said. “We gave a solid effort, but we were facing great competition.”
Penn’s women’s rowing team was swept by Cornell Saturday in its meet on the Raritan River in New Brunswick, N.J.
Both the Raritan Cup and Class of ‘89 Plate went to the Big Red, as the Quakers’ Varsity 8 boat lost its skeg on the way to the starting line. Penn was forced to employ its third Varsity 8 boat, finishing six seconds back of Cornell.
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