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Fourth-Ranked Heavyweights Post Strong Season Opener Over Georgetown
March 28, 2015 | Heavyweight Rowing
SEASON PREVIEW
The fourth-ranked Princeton heavyweights know they will spend most of their regular season racing on Lake Carnegie, and they got that stretch off to an impressive start Saturday morning. Despite a strong headwind, each Tiger boat produced convincing victories over Georgetown.
The varsity eight, coming off a fourth-place finish at the 2014 IRA Championships, posted a winning time of 6:15.4 Saturday morning to defeat Georgetown by nearly 19 seconds.
"Obviously getting on the water was a bit challenging this year for most of the East Coast, and we all had to be flexible for the first couple of days," senior captain James Hamp said. "Knowing that we had only been on the water two weeks, we just tried to keep it simple today and do our work at base. I thought we did a pretty good job getting into our rhythm and dealing with the condition.
"There are definitely things we can work on but no we have one race under our belt and something to build off," he added. "It seems like all of the boats had a similar feeling after the races today."
The second and third varsity boats also produced open-water victories during the morning. The second varsity won in 7:38.5, more than 22 seconds faster than the Hoyas, while the third varsity won in 7:04.3, just under 13 seconds ahead of the Georgetown 3V.
Maintaining a home dominance would be ideal for Princeton, which will compete four of the next five weeks at home. That stretch starts next Saturday, when the Tigers take on the Midshipmen for the Navy-Princeton Rowing Cup.
"Carnegie is just a really great place to row and I'm thrilled we'll be home so much this season," Hamp said. "Besides just knowing our home course and not having to travel, it means something to be able to race on your home course and defend it every weekend, especially as a senior. In terms of starting it off with a win, we obviously hope there are many more to come this season, but it helps to validate the hard work we put in all winter and just shows we need to keep it up in order to finish where we want to in May and June."
While every victory is special in a season with so few competitions, Hamp knows that the most important races won't come until those final couple of months. With that in mind, he knows the team most focus each day on getting faster.
"It's a long season and we've got almost two months before Sprints," he said. "With that in mind, we've just got to keep focused on our goals and try to improve every week. Right now, we just haven't had to time to really get into race plan or starts or sprinting. As we continue to build our fitness and fine tune our rhythm, we'll add these components to execute our best 2000m when it counts. The main thing right now for the whole team is to just keep building rhythm together after a long winter and get used to rowing again."
Varsity Eight
Princeton 6:15.4
Georgetown 6:34.2
Second Varsity Eight
Princeton 6:38.5
Georgetown 7:00.7
Third Varsity Eight
Princeton 3V 7:04.3
Georgetown 3V 7:17.2
Princeton 4V 7:20.7
Princeton 5V 7:29.9
LINEUPS
1V
C Pesce
8 Masters
7 Barakso
6 Mead
5 Konttinen
4 Vystavel
3 Eble
2 Hamp
1 Benstead
2V
C Barton
8 Goldman
7 Francis
6 Octeau
5 D¹Agonstino
4 Livingstone
3 Chance
2 Northrop
1 Barker
3V
C McFall
8 Lord
7 Stein
6 Grimberg
5 Bernhard
4 Guyett
3 Meder
2 Lindburg
1 Wambersie
4V
C Coates
8 Bradbury
7 Toch
6 Bartolucci
5 Dauson
4 Ruscus
3 Evans
2 Romeyn
1 Johnston
5V
C Sola Curry
8 Helmers
7 Shaw
6 Lawton
5 Ferguson
4 Vaughn
3 Moskovitz
2 Michael
1 Segal