The men's crew team got a number of strong results in its busiest weekend of the season Saturday and Sunday at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester. The Jumbos raced against Ithaca, Holy Cross, Colby and Conn. College on Saturday and then faced off against crews from WPI, RIT and Washington College Sunday.
The best performances of the weekend came in the fours, where the Jumbos have been working hard in preparation for championship season. Tufts saw its first varsity four win both of its races, while the second group picked up a second-place finish on Saturday and first place Sunday.
"Overall I thought it was a nice weekend in terms of getting prepared for the New England Championships, which are coming up in two weeks, and for our races this weekend," senior co-captain Matt Diffey said. "We made some mistakes but also did a nice job responding to some of the mistakes we made, and when you do that, it turns into experience."
The first varsity four won a close race on Saturday that featured five boats, as the Jumbos came in at 7:04, just 2.6 seconds ahead of Colby. That group had a much easier time on Sunday as it breezed to a victory over WPI and Rensselaer. The second four improved upon its second-place finish behind Ithaca on Saturday by beating WPI on Sunday by just over three seconds in a time of 7:28. Tufts also had another boat behind the Engineers that came in at 7:38.25.
"This season we have kind of shifted to focusing our program on the fours," junior co-captain Nahv Etedali said. "Most collegiate programs run the eights, but a lot of smaller programs like us go to the fours because it is more competitive for us."
The eights, however, had some struggles in the earlier races on both days. The first varsity eight made a great recovery Saturday against Colby and Ithaca to get back in the race but then faltered down the stretch to finish in third. They also finished third in a four-team race on Sunday. The second boat finished third in both of its races as Tufts continued to run into some problems in the eights.
"I was happy with the results of the four, but in the eight I was kind of disappointed because I felt that in both of our races, we could have rowed better," Diffey said. "I think we kind of figured out what we are doing wrong in the eight and used that to motivate us in the fours. Especially against Colby and Ithaca, that race was pretty disappointing because we were behind from the start, but we came back and were able to come through their boat. We were up three feet with about 500 meters to go and kind of fell apart at the end, and that is the worst way to lose the race.
"It is one of the things. You only want it to happen once in the season, and then you can learn from it. We have been trying to work on learning from that race and working more on that sprint this week so we can be better prepared next week in our racing. We had a ton of races, so it was great to get out and row a lot."
With two weeks to go before the New England Championships, the team is still fine-tuning for the championship season in May. Next weekend brings the Jumbos' last prep race, as they travel to Lake Onota in Pittsfield, Mass. to face Williams, Marist, Bates and Coast Guard. The Jumbos will then return back to the site of last weekend's racing, Lake Quinsigamond, for New Englands.
"At New Englands we are going to be racing in the fours only, so based on our past results, it seems that all three of the fours can medal at New Englands," Etedali said. "Hopefully we can keep winning in the fours this weekend and be a little more competitive in the eights. There is good competition out there at Pittsfield, so it will give us a good idea where we stand and give us good experience for the upcoming New England regatta."
"I feel that all three of the fours we have been putting out are capable of some really strong performances at New Englands," Diffey added. "We put in a lot of the work in the winter and it showed up in our results in the fours racing. A goal for the team is to have all three fours boats medal, and I think that it is not unrealistic. I think that each boat is capable of doing that if they row their best race."
