Princeton University Athletics
Led By Top-Ranked Heavyweights, Three Crews Look To Cap Season With National Titles
June 01, 2006 | Heavyweight Rowing
June 1, 2006
As the Princeton open women capped a brilliant season with a perfect championship race last Sunday, it didn't take long for most Orange and Black racing fans to start getting greedy. Three Princeton crews, including the top-ranked men's heavyweights, will head to Cooper River in Camden, N.J., this weekend with more golden aspirations in mind.
Men's Heavyweight
This boat dominated the novice field in 2003 to cap a perfect season with an IRA title. Over the last two seasons, the members of the Class of 2006 have loaded the first varsity boat and pushed it into the grand final, but Princeton has yet to win its first national title since 1998. Last year's boat came the closest, finishing second to Harvard in the final race of the year.
With the majority of that boat returning this year, and coming off a Head of the Charles victory this fall, Princeton entered the 2006 season as the preseason favorite. Led by national team rower Steve Coppola, captain James Egan and five other members of the senior class primed for a big season in the first varsity boat, the Tigers set their personal goals as high as possible.
So far, so good. Princeton went undefeated during the regular season and then topped Harvard and Brown to claim the 2006 Eastern Sprints and Ivy League title. That is the title that means the most to veteran head coach Curtis Jordan, since it does crown the champion of his league.
But now that they're here at nationals, they aren't about to stop fighting.
"When you win all the time and don't stumble, it can be really dangerous because guys don't know what to work on," Jordan said before heading down to IRAs. "This is just a great group of guys in that regard. They really believe in themselves, but they don't let it affect the way they train. They just keep working."
Three more days of winning efforts will earn Princeton its fourth IRA championship trophy. The Tigers, winners of the 1985, 1996 and 1998 national titles, will compete in one of Friday's semifinal heats, which begin at 11:12 a.m. At the bottom of this story is a full set of heat sheets with times for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Princeton opened Thursday morning by winning its heat in 5:40.3, while Yale placed second in 5:41.31.
The heavyweights will send eight total boats to IRAs: first varsity 8, second varsity 8, varsity 4A, varsity 4B, first novice, novice four, straight four (no coxswain) and pairs. Each boat will begin competition Thursday.
"This gives all of our heavyweight and lightweight rowers a chance to compete this weekend," Jordan said. "The ones that want to get to work and we put them into different boats. It's also a good chance for the coaching staff to work with their own boats for a weekend."
While the opportunity is there for many rowers to win a medal this weekend, all eyes will be on the heavyweight eight. With California and Washington joining Brown, Harvard and Northeastern among the main contenders, Jordan knows Princeton will need its two best days of racing on Friday and Saturday to earn a national title. Princeton will need a top-three finish in the semifinals to earn another spot in the grand final.
Men's Lightweights
With many of his rowers competing in the various heavyweight boats, head coach Greg Hughes can focus his attention solely on the first varsity. He has made a couple of seating changes from Eastern Sprints and feels good about the crew he will take to Cooper River.
"I think I've got the right guys for the IRAs," Hughes said, "and I think they've proven they can race with the elite. Look at Sprints, where the eighth seed won (Cornell). That's the way our league has been. Anybody can win, and I think our guys believe they are part of that."
Princeton didn't have a chance to win the Eastern Sprint title because it was edged out in its semifinal race. The IRAs will go by the same format as Easterns, with only one day of racing for the lightweights. Princeton will need a top-three finish in its semifinal heat Saturday at 7:42 a.m. In its race will be Navy, Yale, Dartmouth, Georgetown and St. Joseph's.
"I thought we let our Eastern semifinal race happen too much," Hughes said. "We just wanted to hang in there the whole time, but we needed to get more aggressive at the beginning. They're a bunch of young kids who hadn't been in that spot, and they'll learn from it. Our goal is to make the grand final, and we'll see what happens from there."
A grand final would be a major step for a young lightweight crew. Having not raced in either the 2005 Eastern or IRA grand final, simply experiencing the race and the pressure involved would mean as much to the program's future as it does the present.
Women's Lightweight
Princeton expects to be rowing in Saturday's grand final (2:27), and it expects a much different result than a disappointing fourth-place finish at Eastern Sprints three weeks ago. Like Hughes, head coach Paul Rassam has tweaked his lineup somewhat to hopefully bring a stronger boat into the final.
"At Easterns, our boat just felt heavy," Rassam said. "We didn't start off great, and it just got worse. We feel like we're bringing a better boat this weekend, and that we've saved our best racing for the end."
Barring a semifinal stunner, the four boats in the grand final will likely be the same as those in the Eastern final: Wisconsin, Radcliffe, Georgetown and Princeton. The Tigers finished fourth in that race, but they have also earned wins over each of the other three teams during the season.
"We've been very focused since Easterns," Rassam said. "The look in their eyes hasn't been one of defeat. They've been working hard and getting much better consistency. It's a young boat, and a race like that is part of the learning curve. We're bringing our best form, and we feel like we'll be tough to beat. If all the other boats bring their best, we'll see what happens."