Women's open crew beats Penn while lightweights sail at GW

Coming from Princeton, it always feels good to beat Harvard. Something about its obnoxious New England accents and even its meaningless mascot is just annoying. Yeah, so it is the oldest college in America. Who cares? Ford is the oldest car company in America — does that stop anyone from buying Japanese? And the same goes for Radcliffe. Does anyone understand why it holds on to that silly name?

All of this is to say that the openweight women's crew victory over Radcliffe and Cornell this weekend was particularly sweet. On a beautiful Ithaca day, the Tigers finished the race in seven minutes, 7.2 seconds – well ahead of second-place Radcliffe (7:16.1) and third-place Cornell (7:21.3).

The lightweight women did not face any Ivy League rivals this weekend, but that did not stop them from taking care of business. Recovering admirably from last weekend's loss to a tough Wisconsin crew, the Tigers dispatched second-place Georgetown by 11 seconds to win the George Washington Classic in Washington, D.C.

According to junior stroke Linda Loyd, Saturday's race was a good opportunity to erase the memories of last weekend.

"Coming off our loss to Wisconsin, this was a great chance to adjust our strategy a bit," Loyd said. "We had a solid race, and feel encouraged with our performance."

The openweights also had reason to be encouraged. This weekend's race was a pleasant surprise for the Tigers.

"The race last year was really close and tough, so we were all expecting the same coming into this one," sophomore stroke Lia Pernell said. "But the racing this year was really different. I think the first 750 meters of this race were the most aggressive we've had so far. We are all pretty pumped."

The Tigers are reaping the fruit of the hard work they have put in since their season-opening loss to perennial rival Brown.

"Our boat came together really nicely this week, and I think that's a testament to the work we've put into making changes and getting better," Pernell said.

With a month left in the regular season and an upcoming race against Yale, the Tigers are looking to maintain their focus and discipline.

"This is a long season. We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us," Pernell said.

So do the lightweight women. With a chance for revenge against the pesky Badgers, and to gain an always pleasant victory over the Crimson in the World Cup April 28, Loyd and the rest of the Tigers will be trying to overcome any early-season disappointment and make a run at their third national championship.