Regatta Notes | Results

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Boston University men’s crew team earned a silver medal in the third varsity four race, which was the only Grand Final event of the morning heats at the 2006 EARC “Eastern” Sprints on Lake Quinsigamond. Meanwhile, the Terrier second freshman eight boat qualified for the afternoon’s Grand Final and the varsity, second varsity and first freshman eights each advanced to their respective Petite Final.

“I’m psyched that our third varsity beat Brown, who we had lost to a few weeks ago,” said BU Head Coach Rodney Pratt. “They really did a nice job out there, as did the second freshman in making the Grand Final. Our JV rowed well but just didn’t have the power to be up with some of the other crews and our varsity just didn’t get the room they knew they had.

“The varsity boat was just never really tested with its current line-up,” continued Pratt of the varsity eight boat that had a new line-up due in part to Jozef Klaassen being out with an illness. “They did some nice stuff in practice and I know they can be more competitive.”

The second freshman race got the morning going for BU, as the seventh-seeded Terriers placed third (6:46.45) behind second-seeded Harvard (6:28.92) and third-seeded Wisconsin (6:30.90) in the second of two heats to earn a spot in the 1:54 p.m. Grand Final. Sixth-seeded Cornell was fourth in 6:51.19. In addition to Harvard, Wisconsin and BU, the final will feature Northeastern and Yale.

Next up was the third varsity four/fourth freshman four race, which had six entries making up the Grand Final. The Terriers came up with a big second-place finish, only falling behind Penn’s JV boat. Penn had a time of 7:01.79, with BU clocking in at 7:08.66, ahead of Brown (7:11.29), Northeastern (7:14.57), Delaware (7:32.73) and Yale (7:47.32).

BU’s next outing came in the first freshman eight race, where the ninth-seeded Terriers came up third to be just shy of qualifying for the Grand Final. Fourth-seeded Penn was the winner in 6:05.66, third-seeded Princeton was second in 6:07.54, BU was third in 6:13.33, 10th-seeded Georgetown was fourth in 6:15.39, 15th-seeded Dartmouth was fifth in 6:17.03 and 16th-seeded MIT was sixth in 6:29.69. BU and Georgetown will row against Cornell, Navy, Brown and Rutgers in the 3:21 p.m. Petite Final.

The Terriers also finished third in the second varsity eight race, where the BU contingency was seeded seventh. BU’s time was 6:15.49, behind top-seeded Harvard (6:03.34) and sixth-seeded Yale (6:07.44), and ahead of 13th-seeded Rutgers (6:28.20) and 12th-seeded Columbia (6:31.83). The Terriers will face Rutgers, Syracuse, Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell in the Petite Final at 4:33 p.m.

Finally, in the morning’s finale, the varsity eight race, eighth-seeded BU was edged out in a race for third place with 11th-seeded Cornell, to finish fourth in 6:18.95. second-seeded Brown was first in 6:09.93, fifth-seeded Northeastern was second in 6:11.51, Cornell was third in 6:17.85, unseeded Holy Cross was fifth in 6:20.25 and 14th-seeded Rutgers was last in 6:32.74. Besides BU and Cornell, the 5:30 p.m. Petite Final will feature Syracuse, Georgetown, Navy and Penn.