Posted: March 30, 2008
PHILADELPHIA – Lehigh traveled south on Saturday to compete in the Murphy Cup and the Mountain Hawks put forth several impressive performances including both the men’s and women’s varsity eights appearing in their respective petite finals. Lehigh qualified eight of nine crews overall in grand finals, including the varsity lightweight women’s eight which earned silver medals, and the women’s freshmen four which finished third out of 20 entries.
The women’s varsity eight finished tenth out of 22 crews, taking third in their heat with a time of 6:57.78 and then finished fourth in the petite final beating Jacksonville and league rival Lafayette by nearly 25 seconds.
Lehigh’s women’s JV eight placed second in their heat and finished sixth in the grand final for a sixth place finish overall out of 15 crews, while the lightweight women finished second for the day with a time of 7:11.17 in front of Temple, Penn State and MIT.
The women’s freshman novice four took first in their heat and later competed in the grand final where they placed third and the women’s varsity pair finished third in their heat and went onto compete in the grand final, finishing fifth.
“It’s great to see the student-athletes gain experience on the Schuylkill for the Dad Vail later this season,” Lehigh’s Director of Rowing Liz Meltzer said. “Not only did we see league rivals, we also saw a large field of future competition and were able to gauge our boat speed early in the spring.”
She continued, “I was impressed with the performance of our women’s lightweight eight in their first competition versus lightweight crews this spring. It was nice to see their success because we have been watching them piece against our open weights during our training.”
On the men’s side, the pair of novice eights took second and third in their heats, with Lehigh A finishing fifth in the grand final, while the men’s JV eight was third in their heat and competed in the grand final.
The Mountain Hawks men’s varsity eight won the petite final in a time of 6:00.98, finishing in front of Delaware, Army, Loyola and Jacksonville.
Head men’s coach Jason Moorehead offered his thoughts following the races. “This was one of the toughest Murphy Cup fields we’ve seen in years with championship caliber competition. Our JV crew had a solid performance and I liked the way our varsity bounced back after a tough first race in their heat.”
Lehigh’s men’s and women’s varsity eights travel to California next weekend to compete in the San Diego Crew Classic, and the full crew returns to action on Saturday April 12 when they travel to Camden, New Jersey to compete in the Knecht Cup.