No. 4 men's varsity crew comfortably defeated No. 7 Northeastern University, and Brown's freshman boat tasted its first collegiate success on the Charles River in Boston Saturday morning.
The ease of the varsity eight's win for the Dreissigacker Cup, given to the winner of the Northeastern-Brown race, provides strong justification for the U.S. Collegiate Rowing Poll's ranking of the surging program. With the dismal performance of the United States Naval Academy against Syracuse University in an embarrassing 11-second loss this weekend, it appears that the title race in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges has narrowed to No. 1 Princeton, Brown and a Harvard crew down on confidence and out of form after its first loss in three years to Brown last weekend.
The varsity race was all but over by the 1,000-meter mark, as the Huskies trailed by open water. Despite Northeastern's fight to show why it is a top-10 crew, the second half of the 2,000 meters was purely academic. The Bears passed the finish line in 6:02.7, over six seconds ahead of Northeastern, to give Head Coach Paul Cooke his first win over Northeastern since he took over as head coach in 2001.
"Last week was both physically and emotionally draining, so to back it up like this was incredible," he said. "(Northeastern's boats) are one of the best crews in the country, so this win is very important to us."
The freshman boat settled into its pace quickly, determined not to become one of the few freshman boats in Brown's history to lose its first two races. The Bears led the entire race, and while never shaking the Huskies, they were never in serious danger en route to picking up their first dual win and their first betting shirt, which the losing boat traditionally hands over to the winners after a dual race.
"It is such a rewarding feeling to win a shirt," said Armen Taylor '09. "To totally spend yourself over 2,000 meters and to have such a worthy opponent take the sweat-soaked shirt off his back and put it in your hand ... it's amazing."
In the other races, the junior varsity eight fell by just over a second, 6:25.4 to 6:26.8. In the varsity four race, Brown's boat finished third among three Northeastern entries.
The team's next race is against Dartmouth, a crew that has been decimated by graduation and injury and is currently the only Ivy outside the top 20. The real test for Brown will come the weekend after, when the crew travels to New Jersey for a race against Princeton.
"Last Saturday was one of the greatest days of my life," said co-captain Ben Harrison '07. "We now can look forward to Princeton in a couple of weeks with a lot of confidence after accounting for one of the toughest programs in the country."
Brown's race against Dartmouth is scheduled for 3:15 p.m. Saturday on the Seekonk River.
