M. crew to race at Eastern Sprints

The men's heavyweight crew was hoping for a positive start to the month of May. Head coach Curtis Jordan had hoped at the beginning of the season to use successful efforts against Harvard, Brown and Cornell to build momentum for the team as the Tigers trained for the Eastern Sprints.

However, the ideal scenario simply did not pan out, and the Tigers will enter Eastern Sprints on a losing streak of three standard races. The streak includes a 13-second humiliation at Harvard, another tough road loss to Cornell, and most recently a disappointing home loss to Brown. The Tigers did defeat Oregon State last Saturday, however, in a nonofficial race.

The loss to Brown last weekend was an especially difficult one, considering the Tigers were ranked No. 7 nationally compared to the Bears' No. 11 and held the home course advantage. Princeton started the day strong, winning the freshman eight and the second varsity races. But in the main event, the first varsity could not match the Bears' strength, falling by three and a half seconds to the underdog.

The Tigers now must try to turn their season around in their biggest race to date, Eastern Sprints. While this initially seems like a daunting task, Princeton will have plenty of ammunition to motivate its training this week, as every crew that has defeated the Tigers this season — with the exception of the University of California-Berkeley — will be in attendance.

At the season's outset, Jordan stated that a medal at Eastern Sprints was a realistic goal for this year's crew. In light of the crew's last three losses, this goal suddenly seems very lofty. That said, the Tigers are a dangerous team with something to prove. They are very capable of making a run to the finals of Sprints and then stealing a medal to save their season.

"We changed up our lineup between Brown and last weekend against Oregon St. and it made the boat a little lighter and quicker," senior captain John Cranston said. "It's sort of a voodoo science trying to figure out where guys should go in a boat, but we've made this change and we're hopeful that if we put together a good race we can do well."

The lightweights

The men's lightweights, also competing in Sprints, have their work cut out for them.

Tied with Navy for fifth place in the nation, the Tigers will try to rise in the rankings this weekend.

Standing in their way, however, will be several other teams that Princeton has fallen to this season.

The Tigers most recently raced No. 2 Harvard and No. 4 Yale on April 26. Princeton clocked in five seconds behind the Crimson and 1.4 seconds behind the Elis. The Tigers' only other defeat on the season came at the hands of Georgetown, currently ranked No. 3. Princeton hopes to shave a couple extra seconds from its times this weekend to pull off an upset against these three squads while holding off lower-ranked teams such as No. 7 Dartmouth and No. 8 Cornell.

The Tigers again hope to defy the rankings against No. 1 Columbia. Though now the top seed in the nation, the Lions fell to Princeton in the Tigers' home opener. Since then, however, Columbia has dominated its competition, winning the rest of its regular-season races.

The Tigers are looking to end the league season on a positive note. With a strong showing in Worcester, the men's crews can take momentum into the upcoming national championships.