Men's crew completed fall competition last weekend at the Foot of the Charles in Cambridge, Mass.
The two and a half mile race began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ended at the Harvard boathouse. Approximately 60 crews competed in the event.
On the heavyweight side, the Big Green had their best finish ever at the race by placing third with a time of 13 minutes, 24 seconds, just 14 seconds behind the first place Harvard boat.
"I think it was a great race," Heavyweight Coach Scott Armstrong said. "We stack up man for man with the best teams in Boston and that's with some of our men gone this term."
The lightweight men were disappointed with their performance, finishing tenth with a time of 13:48. Captain Brian Crounse '94 said the team will hopefully use the frustration of losing to Harvard to motivate themselves this winter.
"Knowing that we could have beaten [Harvard] if we had rowed a good race will definitely keep us going this winter," Crounse said. "Also, the winter will be good because we'll have more rowers on this term which will help us out."
The Big Green did show improvement by racing approximately 24 seconds closer to Harvard than it did a few weeks ago at the Princeton Chase, according to Lightweight Coach Dick Grossman.
"Our biggest challenge is to race Harvard," he said. "Despite not having our greatest rows, we were still able to improve and keep up with them. This is not an exceedingly important race. It just gives us a chance to see where we're at."
Not only did the varsity teams compete well, but the freshmen also rowed a good race, Grossman said.
"Our freshmen did particularly well by defeating the Harvard crew," he said. "We probably have one of the strongest freshman crews we've had in years."
Comparing past results at the Foot of the Charles, the lightweight team sees itself in a similar position to past years.
"We're pretty excited," Grossman said. "Our results were similar to last year, so hopefully with some good training in the winter and a little luck, we'll have good results in the spring."
On the heavyweight side, the team is pleased with performances that exceeded past results.
"This is the highest finish we've had at this race," Armstrong said. "This is an equal or better performance to that of which we had two years ago when we were Eastern Champs. We're hoping we'll have similar progression this year."
Both teams were pleased with the overall fall results and are optimistic heading into winter training and spring competition.
"We will definitely have the momentum going into the winter, but we know we still have some work to do because we came in behind Harvard and Northeastern," heavyweight captain Fred Malloy '94 said. "It still gives us some confidence that we can row with them."
