Crew squads team up for five top-10 finishes

The Boston University men’s and women’s crew teams traveled to New Jersey Sunday morning to compete in the Princeton Chase Invitational Regatta, the teams’ second event of the young season.’
One week removed from the season-opening Head of the Charles Regatta ‘-‘- the largest and most diverse rowing race in the world ‘-‘- BU competed against a field of fellow Northeastern schools, including Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University and Yale University.’
The teams combined for five top-10 finishes, including a tight second-place finish from the men’s four and a fourth-place finish by the women’s eight. But the improvement of the retooled women’s fours highlighted the weekend, with two of the four entrants finishing in the top 10 after disappointing results at the Head of the Charles.
‘It was good,’ women’s coach Stacey Rippetoe said of her team’s performance. ‘I think as a whole team it was better. They executed better than they did last week.’
For the BU women, last weekend’s opener offered mixed results. Rippetoe said she was pleased with the way the eights performed, but also disappointed by the four’s 18th-place finish, which she blamed in part on a lack of intensity from the rowers.
This weekend, the eights offered up another solid performance, finishing fourth and 21st out of a 43-boat field. Meanwhile, the fours really ‘stepped up,’ Rippetoe said, placing seventh and eighth, respectively, while finishing less than two seconds apart.
‘I think it was understood how hard they needed to go,’ Rippetoe said of the improvement. ‘They didn’t understand how hard racing was supposed to be, and now they have a better idea of that.’
The men’s four ‘A’ crew made for one of the most exciting races of the day, taking second place in the 47-boat coxed heavyweight fours event and finishing just 1.3 seconds behind Yale. The three other BU fours placed 17th, 28th and 35th, respectively.
‘Right now, we’re just looking to constantly get better, and I think the fours race for us was really good,’ men’s coach Thomas Bohrer said.
The three men’s eights finished 8th, 24th and 36th out of a 40-boat field.
Both coaches continued to stress that, at this stage of the season, the main concern is setting the team up for a strong spring. None of the members of the men’s second-place finishing four, for example, raced in the fours event last week. Crews from virtually every boat were shuffled as the coaches continued to mix and match, looking for the right blend of speed and consistency.
But the focus on the spring does nothing to dampen the rowers’ competitive natures. It is the coaches’ job to experiment with different boat combinations and keep an eye on the future. They want to improve, and they want to win.
‘I wouldn’t say the team is down or anything. You take second, you want first. You take eighth, you want seventh. I think that’s OK,’ Bohrer said. ‘They’re competitors, so if they’re not in first, they want to keep moving up.’
The men are off this coming weekend before traveling to Hanover, N.H., for the Green Monster Head Regatta on Saturday, Nov. 8. The women’s team will look to build on its recent success Saturday, when it returns home to DeWolfe Boathouse for the Toe of the Charles Regatta.