Crew: Highly-touted Princeton teams flawless in opening weekend

The women’s open crew gave home fans a memorable performance by winning a race against No. 5 Brown and No. 8 Michigan State. By topping the Bears, they retained the Class of 1987 Trophy.

The men’s lightweight team, two-time defending Eastern Sprints and IRA national champions, also demonstrated prowess on Lake Carnegie by retaining the Joe Murtaugh Cup against Navy and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The women’s lightweight crew capped off the weekend with wins against Stanford and Wisconsin, the only teams that placed higher than the Tigers at last year’s IRA National Championships.

Having spent the past few months indoors on the erg machines, the teams were finally able to train on Lake Carnegie earlier in the month. However, the weather has proved to be nothing but nasty, which helped prepare the Tigers for this weekend.

“Winter training is a huge part of any team’s speed in the spring,” senior lightweight Christian Klein said. “If you’re not willing to put in that work to build strength and fitness, you won’t be fast in the spring. We were very lucky this winter to have a great training plan by our coach, Marty Crotty ’98. It definitely gave us some marked improvements on the ergs, so now we’re hopeful it’ll translate well to the water.”

The first varsity boat had a solid rhythm throughout the entire race. Although Navy jumped out with a fast first 500 meters, the host team was able to sustain its rhythm and beat its opponent by nine seconds, finishing in six minutes, 11.8 seconds.

The second and third varsity races also went to Princeton. The second boat was stroke for stroke with Navy until the last 800 meters, when the Tigers pulled away and secured their victory by nine seconds. The third boat also saw a tight race, beating the Midshipmen by a margin of only two seconds. A surprise came from Princeton’s novice eight, which won its college debut by nearly three seconds.

The women’s open crew also won close battles against its opponents. The first varsity eight beat Brown by less than three seconds, while Michigan State finished in third. The second boat came back strong in the latter half of the race to top the Bears by four seconds, while Princeton’s varsity four won by only two seconds.

On the other side of the country, the women’s lightweight crew competed at the Pac-10 Women’s Challenge in California, where the Tigers defeated the last two national champions in an exhilarating weekend. On Saturday, Princeton topped EAWRC champion and 2009 IRA Championships winner Wisconsin with a time of 7:19:3, finishing more than 10 seconds ahead of the Badgers.

The following day, Princeton swept Stanford, the defending IRA national champion. The varsity eight won handily while the second boat rallied to win a close race, beating the Cardinal by less than a second.

The Tigers also won a race against St. Mary’s earlier in the weekend, finishing in 7:06.3.

Although head coach Paul Rassam ’97 is very impressed with his team, he realizes that the biggest races are still to come.

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“We are pleased with the way our squad competed this weekend,” Rassam said. “It is obviously a thrilling way to start the year. But we have a lot of respect for our opponents and know that we have a long haul ahead of us.”