Lightweight Men Look To Make Statement Against Defending Champ Cornell

While the main focus of crew season surrounds the Eastern and national championship weekends, this Saturday will be as interesting a day as any during the regular season. All four Princeton crews are ranked in the national Top 5, and each will face at least one team also ranked in the Top 5. Three teams will race at home, and the full home schedule can be found in this story.

The lightweight men will welcome the two-time defending IRA national champion Cornell Big Red and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to Lake Carnegie this weekend for the annual Platt Cup competition. Cornell won the Platt Cup by nearly eight seconds last year, but Princeton head coach Greg Hughes has been pleased with his team's development over the past year. In the most recent men's lightweight poll, Princeton was ranked fourth, while Cornell maintained the No. 1 position.

Cornell swept Harvard and Penn in its season opener, while Princeton is 2-1 and is coming off wins over both Georgetown and Columbia after a tight season-opening loss at Navy.

The Princeton lightweight women retained its No. 1 ranking in the latest national poll with a dominant performance against Central Florida. The Tigers will open a tough three-week homestand against No. 4 Georgetown Saturday morning on Lake Carnegie. The rivalry introduced the Class of 2006 Cup last year, which Princeton won by 5.5 seconds during a perfect regatta.

Princeton has already defeated No. 2 Stanford as it seeks a return to the top spot in the Eastern and IRA championships. With No. 3 Radcliffe (April 26), No. 4 Georgetown (Saturday) and No. 5 Wisconsin (May 3) making trips to Lake Carnegie, the Tigers will be able to measure themselves against their top postseason competition.

Based on the most recent Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association/USRowing national poll, the top two contenders for the Ivy League open women's title will meet this weekend at Lake Carnegie. The unbeaten and fourth-ranked Princeton Tigers, coming off a 6-0 start with four league wins, takes on second-ranked Yale and Tennessee for the Eisenberg Cup. Yale is the defending Eastern and NCAA champion and is also 6-0, 4-0 in the Ivy League.

The Bulldogs topped Princeton in the regular season by less than two seconds, but they turned it on in the postseason and posted convincing advantages over the Tigers. These two programs have split the last four Eastern titles, with Princeton winning in 2004 and 2006 and Yale winning in 2005 and 2007. Not to be forgotten is 12-ranked Tennessee, which split a three-team race last weekend against a pair of Top 15 programs, Michigan and Ohio State,

The heavyweight men, currently ranked third nationally, will head to Cambridge, Mass., to attempt a repeat of its 2006 road victory against Harvard and MIT in the annual Compton Cup showdown. It was quite a feat for Princeton two years ago, since the Tigers hadn't knocked off the Crimson on the Charles River since 1957. To match that effort in 2008 would be another feather in the team's cap, but the Tiger heavies are off to a very strong start.

Princeton is 3-0 this season, including Ivy League wins over Penn and Columbia, but its most impressive performance may have been a second-place showing at the 2008 San Diego Crew Classic. Top-ranked Washington won the Copley Cup, but Princeton defeated the likes of No. 4 California, No. 5 Harvard and No. 7 Northeastern in the final. The win over Harvard avenged a 0-3 mark against the same program last year; the Crimson regained the Compton Cup on Lake Carnegie, won the Eastern Sprints and finished three spots ahead of Princeton in the IRA national final. Two of the sport's most tradition-rich programs could be on a collision course for two more important postseason meetings, but all eyes will be on the Compton Cup showdown in Cambridge this weekend.

Harvard lost its Ivy League opener, falling by 5.1 seconds to No. 2 Brown in Providence last weekend.

Saturday's Home Schedule

9:00 Men's LW 3V
9:15 Men's LW 1F
9:30 Men's LW 2V
9:45 Men's LW 1V

10:00 Open 1V
10:15 Open 2V
10:30 Open 1N
10:45 Open 3V4a
11:00 Open 3V4B

11:15 Women's LW 1V
11:30 Women's LW 2V
11:45 Women's LW 3V4

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