Three Orange Crews Make Grand Finals at Eastern Sprints

Sunday, May 19

Worcester, MA

8:10 am

Syracuse University

EARC Eastern Sprints

Three Orange Crews Make Grand Finals at Eastern Sprints

5/19/2024 6:56:00 PM | Men's Rowing

Three of Syracuse's four crews made the Grand Final at the 2024 Eastern Sprints in Worcester, Massachusetts, on Sunday. The Orange 2V8 had the highest finish of the day earning fourth by three-tenths of a second, narrowly missing out on a bronze medal. The Orange have two weeks to prepare for the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championship Regatta at Mercer Lake in West Windsor, New Jersey, May 31 through June 2.

"I thought it was a pretty good day for us, to have three of our four crews make the Grand Final. To have a near miss in the 3V but have those guys come back and win the Petite Final in the afternoon I thought it was a good day of racing across the squad," said Head Coach Dave Reischman.

The varsity eight's morning race was a photo finish when the Orange pinned Dartmouth at the finish to claim a spot in the Grand Final beating the Big Green by 0.001 seconds. The Orange went on to earn sixth in the Grand Final crossing the finish in 5:34.710. Brown stormed back in the final 250 meters to earn gold with a time of 5:28.639. Princeton (5:28.720) earned silver while Yale (5:29.932) finished in third. Harvard was fourth in 5:30.098 and Penn was fifth crossing the line in 5:34.046. Northeastern finished in seventh with a time of 5:39.576.

"Our depth is really improving, and I think we've been close in the 2V in the last couple of years and haven't really put it together," added Reischman. "I've told a lot of people this, our 2V has been pushing our 1V all season long, I think there's some guys in there that are interchangable with some of the guys that are in the 1V, so yeah that is better depth for us. Hopefully we can keep it going. I know those guys, the whole team, is excited for the IRA."

The 2V8 placed second in Heat 2 in the morning behind Harvard (5:33.375) and ahead of Boston University (5:36.511) to earn a spot in the Grand Final. The Orange (5:38.938) placed fourth in the afternoon final missing a medal by a close 0.312 seconds. Princeton won crossing the finish in 5:34.498 over Harvard (5:37.196) and Dartmouth (5:38.626) to round out the top three while Yale (5:40.162) and Northeastern (5:47.066) were fifth and sixth, respectively.

After a third-place finish in the morning heat to miss a spot in the Grand Final, the 3V8 cruised to a win in the Petite Final during the afternoon session. SU's time was 5:41.1 over Northeastern (5.49.6), Cornell (5:54.1), Navy (5:54.8), Penn (5:57.5) and Wisconsin (5:58.3).

Thw 4V8 placed second in the morning heat to earn a spot in the Grand Final. Syracuse finished in 5:59.4 to earn a sixth-place finish. Yale (05:45.6) won gold while Brown (5:47.3) and Dartmouth (5:52.8) rounded out the medal positions. Pennsylvania crossed 5:56.3 while BU got the advantage over the Orange for fifth finishing the 2k course in 05:59.4.

"The secret to the IRA, the secret to the entire season is to keep finding ways to get a little bit faster every time out," Reischman added. "So, when we get back to Syracuse, we will sit down with the crews one by one and come up with the points that we think we can do to keep pushing our standard up. If we focus on us and making our boats faster, we will see what happens."

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