As the members of the men's crew team look ahead to this weekend's race with their in-state rival the Williams Ephs, they hope to ride the momentum of a memorable weekend.
The squad started off its season on the right foot this weekend, winning two races Saturday against BC and Vermont before falling to Tulane the following afternoon.
"We definitely had some first-race jitters, but I was really excited for these races," senior captain Tim Pineau said. "Because I went abroad last spring, I hadn't rowed a 2K race since sophomore year."
Although the race against UVM went well - Tufts won in 6:34.15, besting the UVM crew by over six seconds - the highlight of the day was undoubtedly the Jumbos' race against BC, as Tufts came back to win despite disaster striking early in the race.
"Our six-seat caught a crab about a minute into the piece, and for 100 meters we had to row with only seven guys," Pineau said.
Catching a crab, which occurs when the oar enters the water at such an angle that it gets sucked parallel to the boat, is one of the worst things that can happen to a crew boat during a race, and it can often dash a crew's chances of winning a race altogether. The Jumbos, however, did not let it hurt their chances.
"I was really impressed that we kept our heads while he fixed the problem," Pineau said. "We pulled it together and kept going."
"We were rowing with seven people for 15 strokes and still managed to keep up with them," junior coxswain Faith Davis said. "[That effort] was the most I've ever seen a Tufts crew put into a race."
Despite the brief setback, Tufts still improve its time to 6:26.47 in the second race. That success, however, did not carry into Sunday's race against Tulane.
"BC had beaten Tulane on Saturday, and we beat BC," Davis said. "So we came into Sunday thinking we were going to beat them, and then we lost."
"We didn't go at it with the right mentality," Pineau said. "We got flustered at the start, because we couldn't pull away, and then lost our focus, and ended up rowing our worst piece of the weekend. Still, it's good to make your mistakes early in the season rather than later, during our more important races."
Tufts also raced a four-man boat, which fared similarly to the eight. Although the squad of four defeated UVM Saturday, it also lost to Tulane Sunday.
This weekend the team will have an opportunity to erase Sunday's poor effort from its minds when it takes on Williams in a race on the Malden. Tufts and Williams traditionally face off in a regatta in Pittsfield, Mass., but coaches of both teams added this race to get their respective crews some extra racing experience.
"We don't know too much about them, but the more racing we can do, the better," Pineau said. "We really need to work on responding to a crew that really puts pressure on us [at the start]. At no time when we were racing BC or UVM did we really face a crew putting pressure on us, but at New England's we'll run into that, so we need to be prepared."
"We also need to get our stroke rating up to 38 to 40 during the sprint, and we definitely need to work on our focus to do that," Pineau said.
Despite Sunday's setback the weekend was a success.
"Our potential is higher than we thought it was," Davis said.
Now all it will take is some consistency. With the Jumbos' upcoming race with their rival Ephs looming, now is as good a time as ever for Tufts to find its stride.
