Men's Crew Wins First Eastern Sprints Since 1946
May 19, 2002 | Men's Rowing
The No. 5 Wisconsin men's crew had its best day of the season and one of its best days in history, winning the varsity eight at the Eastern Sprints on Lake Quinsigamond, Sunday.
The varsity eight was not the only Wisconsin champion, however as the Badger third varsity eight began the day with a win in the grand final, besting Harvard, 6:02.85 to 6:05.54. The Badger third varsity eight defended its title from 2001 in the event.
Wisconsin second varsity eight claimed third place behind Harvard (5:41.26) and Cornell (5:43.76) in a time of 5:46.75. The Badgers also raced a boat in the frosh eight race, finishing sixth in the petite final and 12th overall in a time of 6:18.68. Harvard took the frosh eight race with a grand final time of 5:51.39.
The final race of the day was the marquee event, the varsity eight. The Badgers were seeded third behind No. 3 Harvard and No. 4 Northeastern heading into the grand final.
'It's considered a sweep if you win the freshman, second varsity and the varsity, so Harvard was primed,' said Clark. 'They were undefeated. This is considered one of the best Harvard crews in 10 years. The last time they won the Sprints was 1990 so they were going to rise and take the sprints. '
But it was the Badgers that won for the first time since the inaugural Eastern Sprints in 1946. In a boat named after the stroke for the 1946 championship varsity eight, the Carl Holz `47, Wisconsin upended the heavily favored Crimson. The UW rowed to a 5:36.60, while Harvard finished second in 5:38.08.
'Our boys were down for 500 or 600 meters and pulled even and slowly pulled away,' said head coach Chris Clark. 'They hit a big move at about 1000 meters, the halfway mark, to move out a little bit. Then with 750 meters to go, they did a short 10, which is 10 strokes as hard as they could go for Dylan [Cappel]. That's who they dedicated the race to. At that point they felt they had broken the back of Harvard, took the race home from there and won. It was a great performance.'
'Jabo finished second six times in 30 years so I can imagine how hard that was,' added Clark. 'We finished third two years ago, fourth the year before that and fifth in 1997 so we finally broke through.'
The Badgers look to continue their momentum and return to the water next weekend on Sunday, May 26 when they race for the Walsh Cup against the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Varsity Eight Grand Final 1. Wisconsin, 5:36.6; 2. Harvard, 5:38.08; 3. Princeton, 5:42.69; 4. Northeastern, 5:43.09; 5. Cornell, 5:46.26; 6. Penn, 5:49.59. Coxswain John Taylor, 8- Paul Daniels, 7- Beau Hoopman, 6- Dan Mueller, 5- Micah Boyd, 4- Peter Geise, 3- Brian McDonough, 2- Sam McLennan, 1- Peter Nagle 2nd Varsity Eight Grand Final 1. Harvard, 5:41.26; 2. Cornell, 5:43.76; 3. Wisconsin, 5:46.75; 4. Princeton, 5:49.05; 5. Brown, 5:50.08; 6, Northeastern, 5:55.33. Coxswain Jaron Berman, 8- Mike Niemczyk, 7- Ben Kaker, 6- Alan Geweke, 5- Nate Altfeather, 4- Alex Cockerill, 3- Nick Kitowski, 2- Anders Boyd, 1- Mike Stahlman 3rd Varsity Eight Grand Final 1. Wisconsin, 6:02.85; 2. Harvard, 6:05.54; 3. Cornell, 6:07.8; 4. Princeton, 6:11.89; 5. Brown, 6:12.93; 6. Navy, 6:24.99 Coxswain Jared Berman, Aric Montanye, Jason Devlin, Ross Hart, Mike Anderson, Dan Chin, Erik Knecht, Kyle Schaible, Peter Turney Freshman Eight Petite Final 1. Dartmouth, 6:03.94; 2. Navy, 6:08.30; 3. Rutgers, 6:11.8; 4. Columbia, 6:12.71; 5. Cornell, 6:13.07; 6. Wisconsin, 6:18.68 Coxswain Mike Lucey, Ryan Schwend, Eric Lehman, Chris Prodberger, Jemre Okoh, Kyle Bunnow, Amir Stepak, Michael Triebwasser, Ed Burnett.
