Crew: Women undefeated entering nationals

The crews kicked off the fall season with the Head of the Charles and the Princeton Chase in October 2010. The men’s lightweights finished the 3.2-mile Head of the Charles with a course record 14:09.921, besting second-place Cornell by an unheard-of 15-second margin. The open women also won their race with a time of 15:48.314, beating Virginia by nearly 10 seconds and rival Yale by nearly 20 seconds.

The Princeton Chase also brought success across the board. The heavyweight and lightweight men, along with the open women, took first place in the varsity eight division of the 3-mile headrace shortly before the programs prepared for their annual regimen of indoor winter training.

The women's lightweight and open women crews are both unbeaten in 2011, including victories at this month's Eastern Sprints.

The open women set their spring season in gear, winning a tight race at home against Brown and Michigan State. This matchup proved to be their closest race of the spring season, and after this race, the Tigers went on to win many of their regular season races both home and away by more than 10 seconds. A gratifying victory came on April 16 when Princeton knocked off defending champion Yale in New Haven, Conn.

Princeton won Eastern Sprints and the Ivy League Title on May 15. Brown again provided the toughest opposition, but this time the Tigers managed to widen their margin of victory to 4.13 seconds and guarantee their victory with open water.

“We’ve tried not to take our undefeated season for granted,” senior Michaela Strand said. “Also, we’ve tried to learn something from every race.”

The lightweight women started their season in California, facing notable opponents Wisconsin and Stanford, the only two teams to place ahead of Princeton at last year's national championships. The Tigers defeated both by more than 10 seconds. Since then, the team has built its record to a perfect 9-0, including a Sprints victory in Cherry Hill, N.J. on May 15. With a time of 6:30.39, the Tigers scored a momentous victory and edged defending champion Wisconsin by 3.75 seconds.

For most of the season, it looked as though the lightweight men would three-peat as champions at Eastern Sprints and defenders of the Ivy League title, but the Tigers fell to a disappointing fourth at this year’s Sprints on Lake Quinsigamond.

Going into their regular season race against Harvard and Yale for the Goldthwait and Vogel cups, Princeton was 7-0 overall and 3-0 in the Ivy League. A one-second loss to Harvard left the Tigers almost exactly where they stood a year before, when they went on to win Sprints for the second year in a row. However, this year, a well-matched field in the final race left Princeton in fourth place, 4.55 seconds behind champion Harvard.

The heavyweight men have had a strong showing this year but also lost two close races to Harvard during the spring season.

Princeton opened its season with strong victories over Georgetown and Syracuse at home and then posted a blazing time of 5:28.0 to notch victories over Penn and Columbia the following week. The Tigers’ only regular season loss came against Harvard, but they subsequently beat Yale, Cornell and Brown in the following two weeks.

At the Eastern Sprints, the heavyweight men showed serious determination and racing spirit when they rallied in the last 500 meters to steal second from Wisconsin and nearly catch top finisher Harvard.

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The next race for the lightweight and heavyweight men and lightweight women will be the IRA championships in Cherry Hill, N.J. starting June 3. The top-ranked open women’s crew will compete at the NCAA championships in Sacramento, C.A. on May 27.

“There’s not much time left, but we are focusing on having the best practices that we can have before the final competition of the year,” Strand said.