It's over. Dreams are shattered. Hopes have vanished. Princeton's lone remaining undefeated crew team has fallen. The last chance for a Princeton crew team to have an undefeated season is gone thanks to the Harvard Crimson.
Last Saturday, the crew teams raced in three close matches. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they were on the wrong end of one of the close races this weekend.
Harvard handed the Princeton heavyweight men, ranked fifth nationally by USRowing, their first loss of the season by four full seconds in the Compton Cup on the Charles River in Boston.
This first loss includes every type of race — first varsity eight through second novice eight. The Tigers had not lost a single race this season until the Crimson, ranked second behind only Cal, overpowered the Tigers by just under four seconds.
"We think Harvard is one of the best crews in the league," senior captain Sean McCormick said. "We are definitely disappointed by the loss, but it was a decent race for us. We have more speed we can find in the boat before we meet them again later in the season."
The Crimson took advantage of an early lead to propel itself ahead of the Tigers to win back the Compton Cup after losing it to the Tigers last year on Lake Carnegie.
"We went up trying to race our hardest," senior Seton Marshall said. "Harvard's always been known to be a good team, especially on their home course. We always expect a good race with them. It's going to be a race decided by seats not boat lengths. We are still looking forward to Eastern Sprints."
Harvard vanquished Princeton in all races but the first novice eight, which the Tigers eked out by two and a half seconds. MIT only fielded novice boats, which both finished more than 32 seconds behind the nearest team.
Two crews raced to victory this weekend at Princeton, both resulting in the capture of a cup. The Tiger lightweight men proved to be too much to handle for both Cornell and Rutgers. The open women, ranked fifth nationally, defeated Yale in all their races except for the first novice eight.
The lightweight men, ranked third, outraced Cornell, a team that is nipping at Tiger heels from the four spot, by just under three seconds to gain the Platt Cup in light rain and a slight headwind on Lake Carnegie. Rutgers finished over four seconds behind the Big Red in the first varsity eight race.
"We came out snorting fire," senior Brandon Hall said. "It was the final home race for the seniors, and our captains, Brian Romanzo and Bill Foshay [both seniors] made it clear to us that we really need to step it up."
Coming off a devastating loss to Navy last week, the tight victory against Cornell was a boost to morale for the Tigers.
"This was really a clutch weekend for us," Hall said. "We were coming off a weekend that we lost to Navy in most of our races, and we needed an impressive showing."
In another set of tight races, the open women beat seventh-ranked Yale in the Eisenburg Cup here in Princeton. In a light headwind, the Tigers' first varsity eight was able to escape upset by merely 1.76 seconds.
"It was a close race, but we expected it to be close," open women's head coach Lori Dauphiny said. "It was some of the best racing I have seen all year."
Coming into Saturday, the Bulldogs were ranked fifth in the nation to Princeton's sixth, but afterwards, the Tigers moved up a slot while Yale dropped two spots.
"Yale was ranked ahead of us going in based on margins in earlier races. I knew looking at the margins going in that it would be a tight race."
Princeton was able to keep the Bulldogs from winning any of the other races of the day as well.
Though the chance for an undefeated season by a Tiger team is now gone, they must go on and hope merely for a national championship or two.
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