Princeton University Athletics
Last Three Lightweight Champions Face Off In Platt Cup Regatta
April 15, 2010 | Men's Rowing - Lightweight
| Racing Schedule | |
| Second Freshmen | 10:40 a.m. |
| Third Varsity | 10:55 a.m. |
| First Freshmen | 11:10 a.m. |
| Second Varsity | 11:25 a.m. |
| First Varsity • The Platt Cup | 11:40 a.m. |
In 2007 and 2008, the grand final at the IRA national championship regatta was won by the Cornell Big Red. Last year, Princeton took that title away with a stirring performance and capped a perfect collegiate racing season with the national championship.
Saturday morning, following a women's regatta featuring three of the top six open programs in the nation, two lightweight programs with recent championship pedigrees will meet in the annual Platt Cup regatta.
Princeton enters the weekend ranked first nationally, with wins over No. 3 Navy, No. 5 Georgetown and No. 6 Columbia. The Tigers have now won 16 straight regular season regattas, dating back to the 2008 season opener, and have won two straight Platt Cups. Rookie head coach Marty Crotty has believed from the start that his team has the potential and work ethic to continue the winning tradition it set last season, when it won each race it entered, including those at The Royal Henley Regatta.
While Princeton has been the historically dominant power in this regatta, winning the Platt Cup 33 times in 43 years, this has been a fairly even series recently. Both Cornell and Princeton have won the event four times apiece in the last eight years, including a 14.2-second victory over the Big Red last year on the Cayuga Inlet.
Cornell has a full weekend in store. Coming into it with a 1-1 record, including a loss to No. 2 Harvard, the Big Red will race on Lake Carnegie this morning and then head home for a Sunday showdown with the Yale Bulldogs. The Big Red does own a win this season over Penn.
Joining the 1V race will be the St. Joseph's Hawks, which competed in the Knecht Cup recently.
Princeton will remain home for the next two weekends to take on a trio of Ivy League rivals. Penn will head north April 24 in the Wood-Hammond Cup regatta; on May 1, in what is likely to be the biggest regular season regatta of the men's lightweight season, No. 2 Harvard and No. 4 Yale will head to Lake Carnegie to take on the reigning national champion Princeton Tigers.