It was an up-and-down weekend for the women's crew team at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester. The Jumbos rebounded from less-than-stellar results on Saturday to take home the Baker's Cup on Sunday.
Sunday started off with the first varsity boat facing off against William Smith, WPI and RIT. As it turned out, it was more of a head-to-head race with William Smith since both WPI and RIT ended up way behind the pack.
The Jumbos and Herons rowed together for most of the race, but William Smith gradually started to gain ground on Tufts and eventually overtook the Jumbos to win the race with a time of 6:42.30 compared to Tufts' 6:46.90. WPI and RIT finished with times of 7:06.01 and 7:10.89, respectively.
By defeating WPI overall on Sunday, the Jumbos earned their third straight Baker's Cup, a tradition between the two teams dating back the past several seasons.
While the Jumbos would obviously rather have finished first on Sunday, they experienced a definite morale boost as they did not allow William Smith to garner a huge lead in the third 500, the bane of Tufts' races this season.
"It was a very gradual thing, which is in one respect a little frustrating because we weren't able to get the win in the end, but it also showed improvement," coach Gary Caldwell said. "They didn't have a huge separation from us in that portion of the race."
Senior co-captain Sara Douglass believes this race marked the start of a new chapter for the season because the team no longer has the stigma of not being able to perform in the third 500.
"It shows that we don't have to lag in that third 500 - it has set the bar for the races to come," she said. "We have no more excuses now that we've done it. We know that we can do it, so next time we're in this situation, we just have to push harder and faster."
The 2V had an excellent showing, defeating William Smith (7:11.64) and RIT (7:26.03) soundly with a time of 7:01.30. The novice eight followed suit with a 7:31.20 finish, good enough to best William Smith and Rensselaer.
On Saturday, the competition was significantly stiffer as the Jumbos went up against rival Ithaca and Div. I Holy Cross. Also competing on Saturday were NESCAC rivals Colby and Conn. College.
The first varsity boat finished in third place with a time of 7:03.50, well behind Ithaca and Holy Cross, who finished with times of 6:47.20 and 6:48.60 respectively.
While the results were not terribly surprising, they were an indicator of where the Jumbos stand against the competition they will surely see later on in the season at New Englands.
"Ithaca and Holy Cross were out in front of us, but they weren't so far that we felt like we would never be able to catch up to them," Douglass said.
According to Douglass, the results leave the rowers optimistic about their chances for the rest of the season.
"We were expecting them to be really fast, and we stuck with them for a lot of the race," she said. "[By the end] we were fighting to keep up with them, and they were fighting each other, but we didn't get blown away by them, which shows we have a lot of promise to close the gap even more."
The results were similar across the board. The 2V (7:11.00) finished third, trailing behind Holy Cross (7:04.20) and Ithaca (7:07.20) but ahead of Colby (7:15.30). The 3V (7:37.70) also finished third - Ithaca took first in 7:20 flat, Holy Cross came in second and Colby finished behind the Jumbos in fourth. The novice boat came in second behind Ithaca with a time of 7:40.1.
Caldwell decided to tweak his lineups slightly before Sunday's races, so the boats had to deal with the challenge of testing new lineups on the fly. Results-wise, the alterations appear to have worked.
As for now, the team is preparing for Senior Day, when it will race for the final time at home this season against Wellesley, who faced the Jumbos earlier this season, along with Smith and Simmons.
