2008 Woodie Awards
Women's Crew: NU takes home 2d Orange Cup
Jewel Della Valle
Issue date: 4/11/07 Section: Sports
The women's crew team traveled to Philadelphia Saturday and took home its second straight Orange Cup with a victory over Pennsylvania and Syracuse.
The Huskies beat the Pennsylvania boat by 0.8 seconds with a time of 6:32.4. Syracuse came in last in the 28th annual race. The Huskies had a comfortable lead on Pennsylvania in the first half of the race, but Pennsylvania gained on the NU boat in the final sprint, closing the gap by about two seats. The Huskies were able to pull out the win in the final sprint, something head coach Joe Wilhelm worked on with his crew last week.
"We just handled the last 500 meters better this week," he said. "I think the crew did a really nice job keeping themselves on task and continuing to row well and do what they needed to do to make sure that they got the bow across the finish line first. … I feel like now we've got a handle on every aspect of the race."
Northeastern also overtook Penn by five seconds in the varsity four race, with a time of 7:36.0, and came in third in the second varsity eight, novice and novice four races.
Wilhelm said he thought the second varsity eight could have done a better job, but still thought they did a "pretty good job" of racing the other two boats.
"Penn kind of pushed away from us in the second half of the race and it really came down, in that race, to us and Syracuse again sprinting to the line to second place," he said. "In that case we didn't sprint very well. I don't think our second varsity eight really made a decision at any point in that last 500 [meters] to really collectively push the boat out."
The Huskies have three races in two days this weekend, taking on Columbia, Massachusetts and Texas in the early race of the Charles River Challenge Saturday, then a rematch against Syracuse later in the day. NU will compete against Southern California in Sunday's race.
"This is going to be a tough weekend," Wilhelm said. "Usually you don't have to race three times in basically what comes down to a 24-hour period. … That's a pretty hard thing to do and we've invited some very fast crews this weekend. … But I think it's going to be a good test for our program to race a lot of different crews over the course of two days."
The Huskies beat the Pennsylvania boat by 0.8 seconds with a time of 6:32.4. Syracuse came in last in the 28th annual race. The Huskies had a comfortable lead on Pennsylvania in the first half of the race, but Pennsylvania gained on the NU boat in the final sprint, closing the gap by about two seats. The Huskies were able to pull out the win in the final sprint, something head coach Joe Wilhelm worked on with his crew last week.
"We just handled the last 500 meters better this week," he said. "I think the crew did a really nice job keeping themselves on task and continuing to row well and do what they needed to do to make sure that they got the bow across the finish line first. … I feel like now we've got a handle on every aspect of the race."
Northeastern also overtook Penn by five seconds in the varsity four race, with a time of 7:36.0, and came in third in the second varsity eight, novice and novice four races.
Wilhelm said he thought the second varsity eight could have done a better job, but still thought they did a "pretty good job" of racing the other two boats.
"Penn kind of pushed away from us in the second half of the race and it really came down, in that race, to us and Syracuse again sprinting to the line to second place," he said. "In that case we didn't sprint very well. I don't think our second varsity eight really made a decision at any point in that last 500 [meters] to really collectively push the boat out."
The Huskies have three races in two days this weekend, taking on Columbia, Massachusetts and Texas in the early race of the Charles River Challenge Saturday, then a rematch against Syracuse later in the day. NU will compete against Southern California in Sunday's race.
"This is going to be a tough weekend," Wilhelm said. "Usually you don't have to race three times in basically what comes down to a 24-hour period. … That's a pretty hard thing to do and we've invited some very fast crews this weekend. … But I think it's going to be a good test for our program to race a lot of different crews over the course of two days."
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