On Sunday, the freshmen women's open crew braved the Belly of the Carnegie and emerged victorious.
The A boat finished first in the open division, defeating Dartmouth and Cornell. Along with the first-place A boat finish, Princeton's B and C boats finished fourth and 12th, respectively, showing the depth of the freshman open class.
In the men's heavyweight division, the A boat finished fourth and the B boat finished seventh. The lightweight men's boats finished 10th and 11th.
The women's A team finished with a time of 15 minutes, 28.79 seconds, soundly beating second-place Dartmouth by 14 seconds. The B team finished fourth place, missing third by less than half of a second.
"It was really fun. Our whole week of practice really paid off," freshman coxswain Yuna Sakuma said. "I'm really glad that I had such a good time doing it."
The Belly of the Carnegie is a head race hosted by the University for freshmen men and novice women's crew. In a head race each boat faces off against the clock rather than directly against other boats. The race runs for about two and three-quarters miles along Lake Carnegie.
There are three individual races, the men's heavyweight, men's lightweight and women's open divisions. Teams from all over the East Coast come to race, which serves as an introduction to college rowing for freshmen.
Since the rules of the Belly require entrants split their teams into two even boats, the event helps show each squad's overall strength.
"[The Belly] is more of an indication of depth of a team," freshman heavyweight assistant coach Marty Crotty said.
In the men's heavyweight class, Yale swept the competition, with its A and B boats taking first and second place at 13:42.57 and 13:45.69, respectively.
The Tigers finished fifth, with a time of 14:04.47. This was their best time on the course so far, but they could not edge rival Yale, who dominated overall.
"I'm satisfied," Crotty said. "The Belly is a good time to work novices in there. They've only been rowing since September."
The freshman lightweights placed in the middle of the pack, finishing 10th and 11th, with times of 14:32.05 and 14:32.71, respectively. Navy won the lightweight division with a time of 13:47.19, and Yale finished second with a time of 13:52.39.
Yale also captured the Belly Bowl Trophy, awarded to the school with the combined best time for their top two boats in all three events. According to University rowers, Yale had a great recruiting class last year and that success showed Sunday in their depth across all three races.
"We could have done a lot better," freshman lightweight James Mears said. "Personally, [though], I was pleased with our overall times and effort."
Mears, a walk-on, says that only eight students on the freshmen team were recruited. The rest were walk-ons. Because of this, the team has been focusing on basic rowing technique since it started practice in late September.
According to Mears, the freshmen now have the technique down, but they have to work on their strength and conditioning in order to improve their speed.
"We'll get our fitness up to speed, and come spring sprints we'll be ready to go," Mears said.
The Tigers now have a long winter layover to exercise in their state-of-the-art indoor practice facilities, as Lake Carnegie will be frozen over.
The crew season resumes in March, when the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges begins its schedule.
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