Open women and heavyweight men crew teams race to first-place finishes

This weekend, the Princeton crew teams raced twice and recorded two triumphs for the first varsity eight squads.

In a clean sweep, the open women's team claimed a total of six victories over Northeastern and Dartmouth, both Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges adversaries, in Hanover, NH. The Huskies and the Big Green are currently ranked seventh and 15th, respectively, in the EAWRC rankings.

The Tigers held onto their first varsity eight win with a 2.4-second margin over Northeastern. Dartmouth finished 12.4 seconds behind the Huskies. The Princeton open women finished in six minutes, 25.8 seconds — their fastest time of the season.

The second open women varsity eight was also a tight race, with Princeton edging out Northeastern by 3.6 seconds.

"There were some close races, but we were pretty solid," open women's head coach Lori Dauphiny said. "There was a lot of good racing."

The other four open women's boats won their races by wide margins.

"Overall I was pleased with all the boats," Dauphiny said. "At this point, we are ranked No. 2 in our league behind Brown."

Near the top of the league and approaching Eastern Sprints on May 12 in Cherry Hill, NJ, the open women's team is hoping for a good showing, coming off a victory over Yale on Apr. 20, who is currently ranked third in the league. They are certainly not expecting, however, to glide past their opponents.

"Lots of boats are coming in with similar speed," Dauphiny said. "Eastern Sprints is going to be a barn burner."

The novice eight boat remains the only undefeated boat for the open women.

Coming off a close loss to Harvard, the heavyweight men faced another challenge this weekend on Lake Carnegie. Cornell — currently ranked eighth in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges, three spots behind Princeton — came into Princeton trying to pry the Carnegie Cup from the hands of the Tigers, but came up empty by one half of a second.

"It was a very good race with a very competitive Cornell crew," senior heavyweight captain Sean McCormick said. "The guys in our boat have gained a lot of ability to race."

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Yale, ranked ninth, finished 7.2 seconds back from the Big Red boat, while tenth-ranked Navy, who was racing on Saturday to make up for a postponement earlier in the season, finished in fourth, another 7.8 seconds behind the Bulldogs.

The close race between Princeton and Cornell left fingernails chewed to the nub when the boats crossed the finish line.

"We knew it would be a close race," McCormick said. "You get pretty concerned coming into the last quarter of the race with the boats pretty much level."

The novice eight was the only other boat to notch a victory for the heavyweights, still the only undefeated boat remaining on the heavyweight squad.

All of the teams in this race will be competing at Eastern Sprints, which will be held Sunday, May 19 on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, MA.

"I'm psyched about it," McCormick said of the upcoming Eastern Sprints.

The lightweight women's race against MIT scheduled for this weekend was cancelled. The lightweight men did not have a race scheduled for this weekend.