Crew teams prepare for season despite frozen river

Although their home course, the Malden River, will still be frozen for at least three more weeks, the men's and women's crew teams will have to find creative alternatives to prepare for their spring season. Both programs enter this spring season after a successful fall season which was capped by a sixth place finish by the women and a fifth place finished by the men in the NESCAC Novice Championships at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, MA on Oct. 26, 2002.

With both opening against WPI on Saturday, Mar. 29, this leaves little time for the teams to prepare in the water. The eight person boats, also manned by a coxswain, will attempt to hone their skills in inventive ways over the break.

"Right now our biggest obstacle is the weather," senior co-captain of the women's team Maggie Danielson said. "We train at Tufts over Spring Break. We will have to be imaginative with our training, getting a lot accomplished with the limited river space."

Training is imperative for the crew teams as both are top notch Div. III programs.

"Normally we would have been on the water for three weeks already," senior captain of the men's team Max Bernstein said. "There is not much time before our first race and we haven't even been on the water yet."

One advantage for both Jumbo squads is that all but one of their regular season meets will take place on the Malden. Tufts is in the process of building a boathouse on the river, which is much closer than their former home on the Charles River. Danielson is hoping the new home will give the Jumbos a larger fan base, giving the squad the feeling of a home field advantage.

"[Opponents] are coming to our river," Danielson said. "We will know the layout and course of the river more than any other team that comes to race us this spring."

Director of rowing Gary Caldwell believes that Boston College, Holy Cross, and Wesleyan will emerge as the strongest opponents the men's crew team will face while Wesleyan, Holy Cross, and Ithaca will challenge the women's squad. This season the men's and women's teams have stepped up their schedules in order to face one of the top crew teams around - the Coast Guard.

Bernstein believes that teams such as Coast Guard are intrigued to race against Tufts men's and women's teams because of last season's success. His sentiments were matched by Caldwell.

"We had a really positive end to last year," Caldwell said. "We had a real good novice women's eight that finished second in New England and fifth at Nationals. Our varsity women's four finished second at Nationals, and our varsity men's eight finished 9-2, our best showing since '92."

The men's and women's team only lost two members from each team to graduation, and still have a large enough team to field four women's eight teams and three men's eight teams.

"It's looking really good this spring," Danielson said of the women's team. "We have a large amount of sophomores coming off good seasons, as well as seven seniors, and two juniors."

Four of the women's five regular season meets are quads as are three of the men's five competitions. This means that the races are set up in a final four type scenario, with the winners of the first heat race meeting each other in the finals and the losers battling each other for consolation. Bernstein feels that the men's team must perform well at those meets.

"To be as successful as last year, we must run the table in the regular season of the NESCAC," Bernstein said. "They all want to race us this year because we did well last year."

Caldwell feels the team's environment at Malden is positive and that both teams should be in the upper echelon of the conference. Danielson and Bernstein both agree with this statement about their respective teams.

"We adapt well to a lot of different situations," Danielson said. "We can race well on lots of different courses and have a lot of experience on our varsity team. Hopefully we can harness that and use it to our benefit for the spring season.

"We are going to do our best to get focused and take care of business right away," Bernstein said.