Given a little incentive, Northwestern’s crew team gladly will take its act indoors.
A brand new $800 rowing machine now graces Patten Gymnasium’s dungeon-like basement, and NU didn’t have to pay a cent to get it.
NU received the new piece of equipment for a recent victory in the Collegiate Challenge relay at Eckerd Park in Chicago against a combined team from Wheaton College and the University of Chicago. The race was held indoors on ergometers, stationary rowers usually reserved for training.
“We demolished the Wheaton-Chicago composite team,” varsity captain Raphael Anstey said. “We won this event by 25 seconds.”
The varsity club also had success in the individual time trials, with Seth Peabody, Charles Sharp and Anstey sweeping the top three spots. Brian Wedel and Eviatar Frankel rounded out the five-man squad.
At the novice level, freshman Pat Nelson won in his first “erg” (ergometer in racing terms) race. Although clearly pleased with besting a field of 25 other novice rowers, Nelson’s appetite for crew was left largely unsated.
“It was sort of like running on a treadmill,” Nelson said. “I definitely like rowing on the water better.”
The team competes in erg races to maintain fitness levels during the winter when rivers in the area are frozen. The next test awaits the rowers at the Indiana Indoor Rowing Championships held in Elkhart, Ind., where Anstey expects stronger competition.
“Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Minnesota and most of the bigger programs in the Midwest will be in attendance, so it will be more competitive,” he said.
With their new rowing simulator, which Nelson describes as “a lot easier to use” than the rest of the machines at Patten, the team has high hopes for competing against the Big Ten’s best.
UNDERMANNED BUT UNDAUNTED: Only a scheduling conflict with a traditional NU party night prevented the women’s club ice hockey team from completely dominating the first stretch of the season. While compiling a gaudy 4-1-1 record this winter, president Jenny Tison said she thinks the team could be undefeated — if not for the sorority system.
“The one loss was Gone Greek Night, so we were missing a couple players,” she said. “I think we might have won if we had had everyone.”
While the setback helped end the team’s unblemished record, the club has a chance to respond with two games against tiny Lindenwood University in St. Louis this weekend.
Although Tison is excited for the trip, NU rarely plays other collegiate squads, preferring instead to match up against teams affiliated with local rinks.
“We kind of dominated our division last year,” Tison said.
The Cats have a Valentine’s Day skate against the Chicago Flash, a Chicago-area women’s team, at the Robert Crown Center in Evanston.
ON THE MOVE: Early Saturday morning Jay Gainer set foot in the van that would whisk NU’s club ski racing squad to a 14-team weekend event in Galena, Ill. Because of the team’s hectic schedule, Gainer had little time to talk about his performance the weekend before.
“I didn’t even check how we finished, to be honest,” said Gainer, the club’s president. “Maybe we finished 13th, I couldn’t even tell you.”
With back-to-back weekend races in La Crosse, Wis., and Galena, Gainer and his teammates have had little chance to catch their breaths, much less practice. And instead of celebrating Chris McCloskey’s 14th-place finish out of 180 skiers in the giant slalom in La Crosse, the team was completely focused on the upcoming weekend in Galena against the likes of Michigan, Iowa, Illinois and 10 other Midwest teams.
