Heavyweights defend waters

One rower alone cannot win the race; only the power of the rowers as a unit and their ability to perform perfectly simultaneous strokes can ultimately propel them to victory.

The Tigers showed that they had mastered that idea at the Princeton Chase, where all four squads placed in the top five against a range of competitors, including rivals Yale and Dartmouth.

The Princeton Chase is an invitational head-race hosted annually by the University during the last weekend of October. The Chase was originally scheduled to be the third regatta of the fall rowing season following races at the Charles and the Schuylkill rivers. A heavy rain and strong winds in Philadelphia made the Schuylkill course too dangerous for competition. That left the Chase as the first chance for Princeton to demonstrate that its success at the Charles this season was not a fluke.

The storm provided temporary, however, and the mild weather was a good omen for the days to come, as the men's heavyweights ruled the regatta throughout the weekend. The Tigers' A boat dominated the water with a final time of 13 minutes, three seconds, which was 10 seconds faster than runner-up Yale (13:13.490) and more than 20 seconds faster than Boston University's third-place time (13:24.203). Not to be outdone by the team's veterans, the Princeton freshman A boat's time of 13:29.613 was good enough for sixth place. With that time, the freshmen outpaced the varsity B boat that placed 11th with a time of 13:36.033.

"Our freshman boat did extremely well," head coach Curtis Jordan said. "The key thing about the Chase is that it becomes a preview to the spring season. It gives us a sense of the quality of other teams, and how good the programs are at other East Coast schools."

Struggling in vain to stay ahead of Yale, Virginia and Brown's powerhouse rowers, the Tigers open women's A boat ended up placing fifth overall with a time of 14:48.811, while Princeton's B boat came in 13th at 15:22.419.

"Overall, it was a very good race," senior captain Kristin Haraldsdottir said. "We have a very young team, so what we're really focusing on this season is getting more races under our belts, improving our strength and just rowing together a lot. The team is really aiming high this season, trying to identify our weaknesses so we can ultimately go for the win."

Riding off their success at the Head of the Charles the week before, the men's lightweights continued to flourish, improving on last year's fourth place showing with a third place finish from the A boat (13:23.926). Princeton was little more than a second behind Cornell's second place time (13:22.693) and Navy's first place finish (13:22.052).

Though the women's lightweights dominated the regatta last year, there was no specific competition for them this time. Within the open competition, however, Princeton put forth several valiant efforts, including a time of 15:40.546 from the Tigers' A boat, which bested a pair of Georgetown lightweight crews.

In addition to the eight-man races, the varsity singles, doubles and fours proved themselves just as capable of crushing the competition. The women's open four A boat glided to an easy win in 16:19.992, which was 48 seconds ahead of second place Dartmouth. The men's heavyweight four, though equally successful, struggled through a tighter race as they barely edged into first (14:44.792) ahead of Boston University.

Getting insight not only on what to expect from the Tigers' East Coast competitors, but also on areas that need to improvement, Princeton's varsity squads will use the winter months to train for their next meet at the end of March. The freshmen, however, are expected to compete next Sunday at the Belly of the Carnegie Regatta at Shea Rowing Center.

With their growing experience, the Tigers can use the break from competitions to improve their unity and strength and position themselves for a fall championship run.