Early-morning wake-up call can't faze Tiger crews

Getting up early Monday morning and starting the day is never easy. Getting up early Monday morning to row in a crew race is even worse.

But that is exactly what the men's heavyweight and women's open crews had to do yesterday morning. The teams, however, handled the early-morning wakeup call well as the men handily defeated Rutgers and the women had no trouble trouncing Columbia and Rutgers in their respective races.

Terrible weather conditions that included a direct tailwind of over 25 miles an hour halted racing at Lake Carnegie on Saturday morning just after the first and second novice boats of the men's heavyweight and the women's open teams had completed their races.

"We can't remember when a race was cancelled on Lake Carnegie," women's open head coach Lori Dauphiny said.

The racing resumed yesterday morning at 7 a.m.

The heavyweights, building on the momentum of last weekend's win over Navy, trounced Rutgers by 16 seconds with a time of 5 minutes, 53.2 seconds in the varsity eight boat. Despite the wide margin of victory, however, the race was rather close in the first half, and especially in the first 600 meters.

Revelry

"We had a pretty bad first half," junior stroke Matt Adams said. "I think it threw us off waking up so early. It's tough to wake up and race at such an intensity."

The slow start was remedied at about the 600-meter mark, when Princeton started to make a move. By halfway through the race, the Tigers had the race under control and were able to cruise to an easy victory.

Similar problems occurred for the JV and third varsity boats — which raced in the same heat against the JV Rutgers boat — with each Tiger crew having trouble starting strong. Yet like the varsity boat, the Tigers mounted a push at around the 600-meter mark that the Scarlet Knights were not able to match. The JV Princeton boat finished in a time of 5:59.60, just ahead of the third-varsity time of 6:11.30 and about 25 seconds faster than Rutgers' finish.

The novice boats, racing Saturday in standing waves, went one for two, winning in the first freshman race by eight seconds but falling in the second freshman race by 10.

The women also easily eliminated their competitors, Columbia and Rutgers. Like the men, the varsity boat was more sluggish than usual off the start. In fact, for the first 400 meters, Columbia hung close to the Tigers.

"I think that the start rattled us," senior co-captain and seven-seat Sarah Cook said. "I think we were pretty sleepy."

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The Tigers soon woke up, though, settling into a rhythm after the first 400 meters and taking charge of the race. Princeton won the contest in a time of 6:40.30, about 15 seconds faster than Columbia and 18 seconds faster than Rutgers.

In addition to dealing with a race change and an early start, what was impressive about the women's victory was the crew's performance in the second half of the race, something the team has been trying to perfect.

"We were working on the second thousand," Cook said. "We had a pretty good third."

The junior varsity and both boats of the varsity four had easier times at the beginning of their races, establishing a lead fairly early then cruising to their respective victories. The JV team finished in a time of 6:51.10, outmatching Rutgers' 7:27.00. The first varsity four boat finished in a time of 7:40.70, seven seconds faster than the second varsity four boat and almost 38 seconds faster than Rutgers. Columbia had neither a JV nor a four boat.

On the novice end, the first freshman boat knocked off both Rutgers and Columbia on Saturday. The second boat, racing only Rutgers, also won, defeating Rutgers by about nine seconds.