For the women's crew teams, Saturday's races marked a positive start to the spring racing season. While both the varsity and junior varsity eight placed second behind Northeastern and ahead of the University of New Hampshire, the third varsity four captured Dartmouth's only first place victory of the day.
After losing to Northeastern a week ago in San Diego, the varsity boat finished a close 6.2 seconds behind the Northeastern crew, while the JV trailed by 10 seconds.
Indeed, the signs of race-toughening and heightened teamwork among Dartmouth's women rowers were clearly evidenced by Saturday's results.
"We certainly covered a lot of ground over this last week of training," said Ingrid Brody '97. "We actually held an even race yesterday against the Northeastern boat right up until the last 20 strokes when we caught a crab. But really, from start to finish, we felt we could win it."
"After coping with a lot of illness during spring break, we're closing the margin against Northeastern. They were fifth at Sprints last year. We made up two seconds in a week's time," Coach Barbara Kirch said.
"We rowed a technically sound race," co-Captain Vanessa Santaga '96 said. "But we didn't get the results we wanted ... Now we're prepared to shift it up a notch in order to get those desired results."
Mother nature was not too kind to the rowers this weekend, though conditions could have been far worse.
"It was a tough day with some bad conditions, but I think we handled the water pretty well," Kopplin said.
"We hit some choppy water and some strange currents right off the start," Brody said. "But after the first 500 meters, we settled and got the boat moving together."
Oddly enough, as the varsity boats churned their oars to challenge the fast Northeastern boats and walked through the UNH crews, it was the exact opposite for the novices.
While the Northeastern novices proved to be no contest, both UNH novice boats managed to inch out the women's crews right at the finish line. The second boat lost by two seats, while the first boat lost by a margin which Amina Para Matlon '99 could only describe as "really really close."
On the whole, Saturday's showing definitely renewed the team's confidence going into the rest of the season. Looking ahead, Sarah Kopplin '97 said, "[Northeastern] beat us in San Diego, they beat us on their home course, but we'll take them on at Sprints."
