Men's heavyweight crew drops first race of year to No. 3 Brown

Not all athletes understand the meaning of sacrifice as well as Princeton's rowers do. In the summer of 1986, Leif Shiras '81 had the best tennis tournament of his life, upsetting then No. 1 in the world Ivan Lendl on his way to the finals of the main warm-up event for Wimbledon. But Leif would rather have been out at the bars than on the court.

Needless to say, Shiras never rowed at Princeton. As a season of staying away from the bars nears its completion, the men's and women's crews were forced to make an even greater social sacrifice for the cause this weekend, coming in early or not even going out at all on the year's biggest weekend of partying.

The men's heavyweights, who stayed in on Friday night preparing for the next morning's race, their most important to date, fell just short of confirming their No. 1 ranking in the East. Brown, currently ranked third in the East, but the defending Sprints Champions, got off to a great start, leading Princeton by a length at the halfway point. The Tigers pushed hard in the third and fourth 500 meters of the race, gaining back a couple of seats, but in the end it was not enough. Princeton finished just 1.1 seconds behind Brown in a time of six minutes, 8.1 seconds.

But the pain of this weekend's race can easily and quickly be erased as the Tigers will face Brown again next weekend at the Eastern Sprints in Worchester, Mass. A win there will turn Saturday's loss into a distant, dim memory, something like the Tigers' memories of the Houseparties that they did not go to.

For the women's open and lightweights the discipline paid off as they cruised to victory on Lake Carnegie Saturday morning. The women's races this weekend were little more than tune-ups for next weekend's Eastern Sprints, as both the lightweights and the openweights decimated their competition. Looking extremely sharp after last weekend's pivotal victory over Wisconsin, the lightweights absolutely annihilated George-town, beating them to the finish by an impressive 44 seconds in choppy water.

"Last weekend's race against Georgetown allowed us one more shot at practicing our race plan before we compete at Eastern Sprints," junior stroke Linda Loyd said. "Although there was a strong headwind and some chop on the water, I thought that we were able to remain technically sharp and powerful."

The openweights were similarly dominating, devastating second-place George Washington by 30 seconds and third-place Georgetown by 53 seconds.

"This weekend's race was really tough. The weather conditions were horrendous, and our time was about one minute and 20 seconds longer than it usually is because of a strong headwind that never died down," sophomore stroke Sasha Suda said. "There was a point in the race where I thought we were at a dead stop."

As unpleasant as the conditions made the actual race, Suda feels that it was a good experience for the Tigers to have had to fight not just their opponents but Mother Nature herself.

"It was a good test of our technical ability, and it was awesome to see that we could keep our heads in rough conditions," Suda said.

Now all the open and lightweight women have to do is keep the ball rolling against the best boats in the East. Since early-season losses, both boats have been virtually unstoppable. next weekend will certainly be a difficult test, but they could not be going into it any better prepared, or any more confident in their ability.