Dartmouth Ends Lightweight Eight’s Streak

Although beautiful weather and glossy water characterized both racing sites for the crew team’s this weekend, their final results were not nearly as consistent as the weather. The lightweight, women and heavyweight crews completed their final regular season races this Saturday, working out last-minute kinks before the upcoming EARC championship sprint races on May 13th.
The women and lightweight squads hosted Dartmouth at the Cayuga Inlet, while the heavyweights traveled up to Derby, Conn., to take on Yale and Princeton in the Carnegie Cup.
The lightweight second varsity, varsity four and second novice won their races, but the Green put an end to the varsity eight and novice eight’s winning streaks, blemishing their previously perfect spring records.
“It was huge disappointment. We had pretty high hopes and pretty high expectations,” said junior Matt Kochem of the varsity eight race. “Earlier in the season, everyone counted on Dartmouth to not be a factor, because they started so late [due to bad weather]. But last weekend and the weekend before, they had good races, so we kind of figured they were going to be faster than everyone had said they were. But we were still pretty confident in our ability.”
Kochem cited nerves, slow starting strokes and an inability to adapt throughout the race as potential culprits responsible for the unexpected loss.
“The race itself was a bit different than our past races. In this scenario, they kind of stayed with us … it was a new situation that we weren’t ready for. Still, we have to really re-analyze everything.”
The Red’s lane positioning could have also been a factor.
“We were on the outside lane, but sometimes the outside lane is a little bit slower and the current doesn’t go with you as much. Also, there’s a turn and the outside lane loses four seats. They were able to make a good move during that so we lost that ground,” Kochem said.
The women struggled on the Cayuga Inlet as well, falling to No. 15 Dartmouth in four out of five races. The only bright spot for Cornell came in the varsity four race, when the Red earned first-place over the Green with 11 seconds to spare. The novice squads finished with smaller margins than the other second-place varsity boats.
“We made an improvement from last weekend [against Columbia and Brown],” said senior Michelle Furbacher. “Our technique was a little better. It was mainly a technical improvement. We knew it was going to be a tough race against [Dartmouth]. … But we definitely have a lot of work to do.”
While the Red lightweights and women competed at home in Ithaca this weekend, the heavyweights made the trip up to Derby, Conn., to race against Yale and Princeton, who boast the No. 5 and No. 6-ranked varsity eights, respectively.
The Red experienced mixed results in the meet, acquiring first-place victories in three out of five races — including two big upsets by the novices and second novices.
“The whole team is really proud of the freshman. For our freshman to go and beat them is just a huge, huge deal,” said sophomore coxswain Jimmy Germano.
Aside from another first-place finish for Cornell in the 2V race, the other races did not go as well, and the Red’s varsity eight and 3V finished third and second in their respective races.
“It didn’t really go like we wanted it to,” Germano said. “But there’s definitely a lot of speed to get … we just have to find it in the next two weeks.”
The varsity eight and 3V will get a chance at revenge when they face Yale again — as well as all of the other Ivy League teams — in three weeks at the ECACs.
“Everybody pulls hard and everybody goes after it. Its just a matter of we need to learn to do it together. We’d really like to beat Yale… nobody really likes them.”