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Lightweights Lead SJU to Team Title at Murphy Cup
March 25, 2006
PHILADELPHIA - The Saint Joseph's men's lightweights came through with strong performances to lead the Hawks at the Murphy Cup Regatta. Overall the men's and women's teams combined to retain the Sean Brennan Points Trophy, tallying 56 points to best Temple (37 points) for the team title. The men's Varsity Heavyweight 8, however, fell flat in its attempt to repeat its 2005 gold medal performance, finishing in a disappointing 4th place behind Temple, George Washington and the SJU Varsity Lightweights. The afternoon finals started out well for the Hawks as members of the Varsity Lightweight 4 and the Freshmen Lightweight 8 combined forces to row against the top lightweight shells from Loyola and Lafayette in the Varsity Lightweight 8 final. The young Hawk boat (5 freshmen) jumped out to an early lead and never looked back pushing their way to a 28-second victory. First-year Assistant Coach Sean McCullagh was impressed with the performance of the rowers, "Our guys came together in a short week of practice and demonstrated some very good speed for such an inexperienced group. With a few more practices and races under their belts, these guys may be able to give our Varsity Lightweight 8s a run for their money." The Varsity Lightweight 8 also raced well despite the loss in the results column. The smaller lightweight crew (155 lb average weight) raced-up in weight class to take on all heavyweight entries (averaging over 185 lbs.). Finishing second to Temple in their heat the Light 8 qualified in fifth place for the Grand Final. In the final the Lightweight 8 rowed a solid rhythm to earn a third place finish, 7.4 seconds behind Temple but ahead of the SJU Heavyweights (0.3 seconds), Lehigh (10.9 seconds) and La Salle (29 seconds). The 2nd Varsity Heavyweight 8 rowed a gutsy race and demonstrated some significant improvement from their 2nd place finish to Georgetown a week ago. Despite a line-up change on the Friday before the race, SJU was able to row from behind and eat into an early open water lead held by Temple to finish just a fraction of a length behind.
"We are making progress in the 2V", said fourth-year assistant coach Paul Mullin. "We have a lot of talent on the team this year so it is just a matter of time before we get the right guys into the right seats to make the boat go fast. The 2V found some rhythm on Thursday before the race and demonstrated some of their speed in the second half of the race. A few more weeks and we expect to see some impressive results from these guys." In other racing the Freshman 8 and Freshmen 4 both won their heat races but placed 2nd in the finals by close margins. On April 1st the Hawk Lightweights will participate as a guest in the Lev Brett Cup race against the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers. The Heavyweights return to action at the GW Invitational on April 8th. Varsity 8 Lightweight 8 Second Varsity 8 Freshman 8 Freshman 4 |
