Men's Crew show promise, Heavyweight team finishes second and Lightweight claim first over weekend

The Princeton men’s heavyweight and lightweight rowing teams each competed in their second-to-last dual meet of the year this weekend as the regular season winds down and the championships approach. With both teams notching their biggest wins of the season so far the previous week, this weekend’s races were a chance to keep that momentum going, a task that the two squads took on with varying degrees of success.

The third-ranked heavyweight team faced second-ranked Yale and Cornell in New Haven for the Carnegie Cup, and they fell just short of upsetting one of their fiercest rivals and suffered their first loss of the season. In a tight first-varsity race, the Bulldogs were able to outpace the Tigers by just over two seconds, with the Big Red finishing another three seconds behind, in third. Despite the loss, the narrow margins will serve as an encouraging sign of Princeton’s chances to finish ahead of Yale at the Eastern Sprints and IRA Championships next month and establish the team as a real threat to win both titles. Furthermore, aside from the second-place finish in the first-varsity race, Princeton claimed first place in the second, third, fourth and fifth varsity slots, highlighting the team’s depth across the board. With a competitive Brown squad coming to New Jersey next weekend in the last dual meet of the season, Princeton will look to put this weekend’s disappointment behind them and end the year on a high note.

The second-ranked lightweight team followed up a huge win over top-ranked and undefeated Cornell last weekend with a dominant performance at home on Lake Carnegie against Georgetown and Penn to retain the Wood-Hammond Cup. The Tigers have historically owned this competition and continued the trend this year, posting an 11-second victory in the first-varsity race in difficult conditions. Perhaps even more impressive was Princeton’s overall ascendency in the lower boats as well, with the second and third boats winning their respective races and the fourth, fifth and sixth boats all coming in ahead of the fourth boats for the Quakers and the Hoyas. Having asserted themselves as a favorite to claim top spots at the Eastern Sprints and IRA Championships with last week’s win over Cornell, the team showed no signs of a letdown against a somewhat-less-challenging group of opponents. However, Princeton will have little time to rest on its laurels, as first-ranked Yale and fifth-ranked Harvard come to town next weekend for the Goldthwait and Vogel Cups. Victory in those races will cement the Tigers’ status as the team to beat, not only in the Ivy League, but in the country.

Both men’s rowing teams have enjoyed hugely successful seasons and are, despite setbacks such as the one suffered by the heavyweights on Saturday, both legitimate national title contenders. The teams’ respective ability to maintain or reestablish momentum in their last dual meet will go a long way toward determining their results in what should be an exciting and potentially gratifying end to the season.