Novices win, varsity teams take second in opener for w. crew

The spring crew season started off on March 30th for the women's open crew team. The varsity teams picked up second places, while the novices won their races.

In a race against Brown and Michigan State, the first varsity eight team finished a distant second (6:47.58) to Brown (6:35.58), while the Spartans rounded out the race in third place (6:51.09). Against the same teams, the second varsity eight squeezed into second (6:57.87) in a much tighter race, which saw another victory for the Bears (6:55.02) and a Michigan State loss (6:59.65).

Princeton's varsity fours (A and B) finished second (7:41.02), just edging out Brown by .21 seconds, and fourth (7:44.23) respectively, while the Spartans notched their only win, by just under three seconds.

The Tiger novices, racing only against the Bears, faired better, winning both their races. The first novice eight (6:53.30) squeaked past Brown for its victory by only .43 seconds. The second team finished well ahead of Brown's second, defeating the squad by more than 12 seconds.

The men's heavyweight team was set to row at Navy on March 30th, but choppy waters caused the race to be postponed.

"Our lower course was unrowable due to the rolling of the water," Navy head coach Rick Clothier said. "We then took a look at using our upper course and the first half of the course would have been difficult, but rowable. However, the last half of the race had the same conditions as what we had on the lower course, so we felt it was in our best interest to not race today."

Princeton crew has high expectations going into the season. At the end of the 2000-01 year, the men's heavyweight team was named first-team all-Ivy, while women's open crew was named second team.

The men's varsity eight is coming off a second place finish at last year's IRA national championships. Men's lightweight varsity eight won the petite final last year. The women's lightweight varsity eight won their third national championship, while the women's open crew varsity eight had the lowest finish among the Tigers, taking fifth at the NCAA Championships.

The women's open crew team lost only seven seniors to graduation from last year's team and figures to improve on last year's performance with the twelve returning seniors from last year's fifth-place team, as well as nine returning juniors.

Women's lightweight crew is in just as good a boat, losing only four rowers to graduation, while benefiting from the leadership of their five returning seniors and five returning juniors.

The men's heavyweight squad, however, lost eleven to graduation, while returning only eight seniors. Nevertheless, they are bolstered by this year's nine juniors.

Men's lightweight crew returns eleven seniors and eleven juniors to the team. That boat also lost eleven seniors to last year's talented graduating class.

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Princeton's crew tradition, one of the most storied in American history, first raced in 1872. In 2002, the team is stacked with touted recruits and championship-winning veterans. In a few short months, another season will be over, but be assured that the Tigers will be on the prowl for four more national championships.