SARASOTA, Fla. – The No. 7 Northeastern men's rowing team wrapped up competition at the Sarasota 2K at Nathan Benderson Park on Saturday, finishing fourth as a team in the Benderson Cup standings and fifth in the first varsity against some of the top crews in the country.
 
"This is a great event every year," said head coach Alex Perkins. "We knew there would be a high level of competition today. We made a few tweaks from yesterday, and the guys made some good progress in parts of the race. There are a few parts that we need to work on, but that's what we expect. This is our 20th day on the water, so I was proud of the way the team raced as a whole."
 
In addition to the fifth-place finish from the 1V, the Northeastern 2V recorded a fourth-place finish while the third varsity reached the podium with a third-place finish behind only Harvard and Washington, giving the Huskies enough points to finish fourth as a team ahead of No. 8 Stanford and No. 10 Yale.
 
With all six schools ranked in the top-ten nationally entering the event, it was sure to be tight racing throughout the weekend, and the first varsity delivered with an even start across the field with Harvard and Washington slightly ahead. Northeastern and Stanford went head-to-head for third place with Yale trailing slightly behind entering the second 500 before just 0.1 seconds separated the Huskies and Cardinal at the split. Stanford, though, would start to press while Brown made a move over the final 1000 meters to send Northeastern to fifth at 5:56.05.
 
The second varsity race saw Washington and Harvard get off quickly to establish control in the first 500-meters with the rest of the field fighting for third. As Northeastern, Stanford and Brown jockeyed for that third-place position in the second 500, it was the Huskies sitting in fifth at the split (2:56.00) with just 1.5 seconds separating the crews. Brown would pull away to maintain its spot in third past the midway mark of the race to leave Northeastern and Stanford side-by-side for fourth, and the Huskies made a push down the stretch to lead the Cardinal by half a length while maintaining contact with Brown to cross at 5:56.73.
 
After finishing first in its heat on Friday with the third fastest time of the day, the third varsity got off to another fast start on Saturday to keep pace with Washington through the opening 500 meters. The Washington Huskies maintained its lead entering the second 500 as Harvard crept up to overtake Northeastern for second place, with the Huskies keeping both crews in their sights. As UW and the Crimson pulled away from the field at the midway mark of the race, Northeastern and Brown found themselves in a fight for third, but a move from the Huskies allowed NU to build a gap on the Bears to solidify their third-place position the rest of the way before crossing at 6:07.69. 
 
Northeastern will return home for its first of two races at home on the Charles River this season, beginning with Boston University on Saturday morning for the Arlett Cup. 
 

	First Varsity	Second Varsity	Third Varsity
	1. Washington - 5:45.02	1. Harvard - 5:45.01	1. Harvard - 5:57.94
	2. Harvard - 5:46.59	2. Washington - 5:45.40	2. Washington - 6:01.65
	3. Brown - 5:52.51	3. Brown - 5:52.94	3. Northeastern - 6:07.69
	4. Stanford - 5:53.37	4. Northeastern - 5:56.73	4. Brown - 6:11.71
	5. Northeastern - 5:56.05	5. Stanford - 5:58.60	5. Stanford - 6:13.13
	6. Yale - 5:58.75	6. Yale - 6:03.83	6. Yale - 6:15.55
	- -	- -	- -
C	Alex Stamas	Connor Burke	AJ Hwangbo
S	Julian Leonhardt	Maximilian Brill	Max Jarvie
7	Alexander Willott	Luca Mezzanotte	Logan Smith
6	Krystof Janac	Ned Botherway	Riley Putnam
5	Edward Lopas	Aidan Murphy	Will Donovan
4	Mark Kakoma	Thomas Byass	Max Cossill
3	Brandon Mark	Harry Oliver	Franklin Baron
2	Jakub Kyncl	Chase Brown	Miles Kramer
B	Luke Hickling	Finn Houghton	Michael Kourakos