A few rowers on the boat had lost to Brown seven straight times.
They didn't want to make this the eighth.
When the women's openweight varsity eight took the water in Camden, N.J. for Eastern Sprints, the Tigers knew who they had to beat to come away with a victory.
Their only loss of the season came March 31 against Brown, and every loss over the past three years had come to the Bears as well.
"We were gunning for them the whole time," junior Kate Phillips said. "We were getting sick [of losing to them]."
Princeton looked as if it had a good chance at breaking its string of losses coming out of the morning heats. The Tigers had the swiftest time going into finals, two seconds faster than the Bears' morning time.
The Brown victory streak was not to come to an end yesterday, however.
The Bears cruised to their fourth straight Sprints victory with a time of six minutes, 38.40 seconds. Princeton crossed the finish line three seconds later in second place at 6:41.45.
The Tigers took a lead off the start, but at the 800-meter mark, Brown walked through them to take the lead, which it never relinquished.
"It was a hard-fought race the whole way through," Phillips said.
An unknown factor in the race was Syracuse, a boat that had been ranked No. 3 in the nation during the season, but which the Tigers had not seen in competition.
Princeton proved that it had deserved its higher ranking throughout the regular season, beating out the Orangemen by four-tenths of a second in a close sprint for the finish.
Golden
The varsity eight's second place finish rounded out a disappointing day for the Tigers. The only team to take home a gold medal was the third varsity four in the "B" heat.
This boat had the fastest time coming from the heats in the morning, and thus expected to have a good race.
"This is what you row all year for," junior Lindsay Hedrick said. "We had two seniors, and this was their last shot for a good race."
Princeton took the rest of the field right from the start, and continued to increase their margin of victory throughout the race. The Tigers crossed the finish line three seconds ahead of Virginia in a time of 7:42.53.
"We saw them out of the corner of our eye the whole race, and they pushed us to a strong race," Hedrick said.
Non-precious
Princeton's other races of the day brought home less hardware. Other than the varsity eight and the 3rd varsity four, only the novice four finished in the medals.
The novice four took a silver in its race, finishing a significant distance behind the victor, Wisconsin. The Tigers came in with a time of 8:21.80, twelve seconds after the Badgers.
The third varsity four in the "A" heat had less success than its fellow four, finishing just out of the medals in fourth, with a time of 7:57.40.
The second varsity event, which Brown also won, found the Tigers finishing last, suggesting that the Bear's streak might continue for a few more years.
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