Rowers host country's best

After midterm week is over, the Princeton varsity crews will stay on campus for one last test: the three-mile Princeton Chase on Lake Carnegie on Oct. 29.

The women's open crew is coming off a first-place finish among college teams in the Head of the Charles Regatta last weekend. They finished in third place overall, trailing only the U.S. and Canadian national teams.

"I expect the Chase will be challenging," open coach Lori Dauphiny said. "There are 50 varsity women's eights entered this year, and we look forward to racing some of the best crews in the country."

The open crew won the Chase last fall by a margin of 27.2 seconds over the next team. That team went on to have an undefeated spring 2006 season. They also won the Eastern Sprint and NCAA championships by open water. Dauphiny was named National Coach of the Year last June for her work last season.

"It is always good to do well in the fall, but the fall is not a direct indicator of spring results," Dauphiny said. "We have work to do before the spring season. This year's team is great; they work hard, and they are enthusiastic and young. One of the goals for the senior class this year is to provide leadership by example. Last year's group showed everyone how it can be done."

Lightweights top college

The men's lightweight crew is coming off a first-place finish among colleges in the Head of the Charles last weekend.

They finished in fourth place overall.

"The Chase is an important event for all of our teams," men's lightweight coach Greg Hughes said. "It is the one fall race where every athlete will have the chance to compete. All of our athletes will race in two events, once in an eight and once in a four or other small boat. We always like to do well at home, and the rowers are looking forward to the racing."

The men's heavyweight crew was fourth among colleges in the Head of the Charles last weekend, and 10th place overall. Last year, they won the Chase by nearly 24 seconds.

The women's lightweight crew placed first among colleges in the Head of the Charles this year, and second place overall.

Freshmen excel

The freshmen crews from all four programs will be competing at the Head of the Schuylkill on Oct. 28 in Philadelphia. The Schuylkill is a two-and-a-half mile course, compared to the three-mile Charles the crews raced last week.

"We will be able to race the Schuylkill harder, whereas the Charles is a bit more of an endurance test," freshmen heavyweight coach Marty Crotty explained. "The freshmen performed very well at the Charles. We were nipped by Cal by just more than one second, but that's pretty good considering we had to work our way around Brown during the race. We were also able to beat Harvard and Yale by a fair amount. The fall is certainly not a good indicator of what the spring competition will bring but it was nice to go up to Boston after just a short training period and perform pretty well."

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The men's freshmen lightweight crew is the only crew competing in both races this weekend.

"This weekend's racing will be tough because it is the first race for most of the squad," men's freshmen lightweight coach Scott Alwin said. "As for the Princeton Chase, we'll throw the guys in there because they will be in town practicing over fall break anyway, and it would be difficult to get practice time on the day that so many crews are visiting for the race. I think this year's squad will benefit from the extra race experience."

The freshmen women's lightweight crew is heading into the race with the same philosophy.

"We're just using this as an opportunity to get a race in," freshmen women's lightweight coach Jeremy Turk said. "Six weeks ago, we had rowers who had never taken a stroke before so we're trying to get experience in before the Belly of the Carnegie in two weeks; we're using this as a buildup point. That being said, I expect them to do very well against the other freshmen crews."