Just two weeks before the New England Championships on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, the men's crew came through with an impressive showing on the course that will host the biggest race of the season.
The Jumbos returned to Worcester this weekend for their first visit since last fall. Tufts readapted to the waters quickly and had some strong performances from the varsity four boats in both Saturday and Sunday's races.
On Sunday, Tufts raced with WPI and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The team went out trying to assess the course they will be on in two weeks and keep building on its string of recent success, including some close races from Saturday.
"I think we are definitely making a lot of improvements," senior co-captain Nahv Etedali said. "One of the big things is we are doing a lot of seat racing. There is a lot of competition for seats, so that obviously makes the team go faster as a whole."
Tufts raced two varsity four boats on the day versus a crew each from WPI and RIT, and it came away with improved times in comparison to Saturday's racing. The first boat won the race in 6:52.24, coming ahead of RIT by a little over three seconds. The second boat also had a good day, finishing in 7:08.05.
"In the fours, we had a little more time off in between races, and I think we just rowed a little bit better on Sunday," senior co-captain Robbie Bayless said. "We kept our composure a little bit better. The 2V stayed right with us and RIT for pretty much the first [600] or 700 meters.
"We had some really good moves through the 1,000-meter mark; we took a power 20 and went from being marginally up to being up by almost a length in those 20 strokes," Bayless continued. "Then we really just hung on. [Junior Brendan Coggan] and [sophomore D.J Ambrozavitch] and [junior Stephan Juergensen] really did a great job of gutting it out and got us across the line by about half a length."
The Jumbos also raced a novice crew versus WPI. The four finished in 7:45.58, coming through with arguably their best performance of the season, according to Bayless.
"The novices have been working pretty hard all week," Bayless said. "They fell into the bad graces of the coach, and they had been running down to practice every morning. It has really united them, and they rowed the best I have seen them row all year on Sunday, so I am pretty excited to see how they continue to come together and keep rowing."
The last race of the day was in the eights. Although the Jumbos have been focusing on fours, the eights provide another chance to get a layout of the course. This particular race was just 1,950 meters instead of the typical 2,000, and Tufts finished fourth behind two crews from WPI and one from RIT.
"The eights race was pretty similar [to Saturday's]," Bayless said. "The start was really wild; the wind was even stronger on Sunday than it was on Saturday. We actually started in the same lane as another boat — we had to switch lanes 200 meters in. [Sophomore coxswain Josh Aschheim] did a really great job keeping his cool and getting us through that start in one piece."
On Saturday, the Jumbos' top varsity four was in a close duel with Conn. College. Tufts rowed hard, but it ran out of gas at the end after a quick turnaround from racing Colby and Ithaca in the eights.
"We had to get right off the water and literally run to the dock, pull our eight to the water, set it down, grab the oars, and go right back to the dock," Bayless said. "We headed out and had a real quick warmup and went to the start line, and it was really windy."
Though the race was back and forth, Conn. emerged victorious by a second in 6:57. The Jumbos also had another boat in the race, finishing in 7:24.
"The start was a little rough; we were blowing all over the place, but Josh did a pretty good job lining us up," said Bayless, who was in the first boat. "We went up on them in the beginning; it was pretty much neck-and-neck through the first 1,000 meters. We fell off a little bit and were having problems with some of the chop in the water, and it really upset the boat. We didn't recover through that very well, so that threw off our timing, but we stayed with them in spite of having a really rough row.
"They pulled out to about a length lead with 500 to go," he continued. "We tried to close them down at the end and just didn't really have enough left in the tank."
Tufts will have its final prep race next Saturday morning before New Englands on May 2-3. The Jumbos will be back on the Malden River, facing off against Middlebury.
"It is our last race, versus Middlebury, who we have never raced before, and it is our last home race of the season, too," Etedali said. "We are looking to build on the success and the work we have done this season. We want to get some good swings together and really show Middlebury what we have and show ourselves what we have. If we have a good row this weekend, it will obviously help us going into practice next week and at New Englands."
