Rowers prevail over wind, cold, and foes

It was a successful Saturday for the three Princeton crews in action. The men's heavyweight crew defeated Rutgers in the Raritan River in New Brunswick, the women's open crew placed second in a tri-meet against Cornell and Harvard in Ithaca and the women's lightweight crew hosted and beat MIT and the University of Central Florida.

The Tiger women's lightweight team rowed well over a windy, choppy and cold Lake Carnegie.

The first varsity eight boat won the 2,000-meter race in seven minutes, thirty-seven seconds, nearly 20 seconds ahead of second-place UCF and 25 seconds ahead of MIT. The second varsity eight won by 2 seconds over MIT. The Orange and Black also won the varsity four B and novice eight races, only falling in the varsity four race to MIT.

Women's open crew falls to Harvard

The women's open crew faced even harsher conditions in Ithaca and finished second in the Class of 1975 Cup race. The race went on despite swirling headwinds and a temperature of about 30 degrees.

"It was our first challenging road trip this year and rowing on someone else's water is definitely challenging. The cold, windy and snowy conditions made racing this weekend tough for all boats on all teams," senior Claire Gowdy, who is a member of the open crew, said.

"But even in the face of the adverse weather and being at an unfamiliar course, I thought all of our crews managed to keep composure and race hard, and it paid off in events like the second varsity eight, the third varsity A four and the novice four," she added.

Though the varsity eight lost to Harvard by about six seconds, it defeated Cornell easily by 22 seconds. Princeton's varsity four and second varsity eight scraped out wins over Harvard by just seconds, and Princeton also found victory in the novice four, which it won easily, beating Cornell by 17 seconds.

"By winning a couple of the races on Saturday, Harvard proved that they are to be reckoned with. But, it's still relatively early in the season, and we have five weeks before we meet them again at Eastern Sprints. It's going to take many more grueling practices on Lake Carnegie in order to find that extra speed," Gowdy said.

Men's heavyweight crew dominates Rutgers

The men's heavyweight crew retained the Logg Cup when they visited Rutgers. As in the two women's meets, the men also battled the freezing-cold Northeastern temperatures in New Brunswick.

"Every one of our races is a traditional ... dualor tri-meet, and the Logg Cup is just named after a coach that was a longtime Rutgers coach named Charles Logg," head coach Curtis Jordan explained.

The Tigers swept all three races against the Scarlet Knights. Princeton won the varsity eight race with a time of 5:48.1, about six seconds faster than its opponents. The second varsity four beat Rutgers by about 15 seconds, and the novice eight made an impressive showing, winning with a time of 5:57.8.

"I think we performed well this weekend. It always is a significant rivalry in that it is the two major schools in New Jersey, and Princeton and Rutgers in all sports have an ongoing head-to-head competition for bragging rights," Jordan said. "So, we were very eager to win, and I thought that for a young team we did a good job of it."

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"Continued development of the squad is important for competition down the road this season and next. It's a young squad, and we're still in the throes of final selections for each one of the boats and who's sitting where."

The men's heavyweight crew will be competing for the Childs Cup, the oldest rowing trophy in the country, next week in New York City against Penn and Columbia.

The men's lightweight crew will compete against Rutgers and Cornell in Ithaca while the women's lightweight will travel to warmer weather in Redwood Shores, Calif., for the Windermere Classic.