Princeton University
Eastern Sprints
Players Mentioned
Lights Repeat Bronze At Sprints, Will Take Final Shot At NY Pair At IRAs
May 17, 2015 | Men's Rowing - Lightweight
They will head to the IRA Championships off the momentum of an impressive bronze medal in the varsity eight grand final on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Mass. While top-seeded Cornell and second-seeded Columbia remained out of reach, the Tigers topped Yale by nearly two seconds to reach the medal stand at Sprints for the second straight year.
It capped a terrific day for the whole program, which medaled in all five of the grand finals during Sprints Sunday. While Cornell also went 5-for-5 in reaching the medal stand, no other Ivy League program reached the medal podium more than once.
Princeton tried to grab an early lead with a high stroke rate early, but Cornell was able to take over by the 500 mark. The Big Red didn't use one major burst to put open water between itself and the field, but they steadily progressed ahead of a hard-charging field. Columbia, whose only loss this season came to Cornell, tried one final charge late, but the Big Red retained the title in 5:40.683, about one full second ahead of Columbia.
Princeton tried to get into that front battle, but it also had to hold off its Goldthwait Cup rivals from behind as well. The third-seeded Tigers took third in 5:44.573, more than one second ahead of Yale and two ahead of Harvard.
"Our goal was to get out as fast as we could to try and hang with Cornell and Columbia," junior Isaiah Brown said. "We had been executing well in practice and I think we were able to bring that to today's race, jumping out on Harvard and Yale and staying with Cornell and Columbia in the first 500. Overall, I think we executed our race plan well and had our best race yet, though we had hoped to have a bigger push in the second thousand.
"We are looking forward to another two weeks of training to try and get a better result at the IRA."
Princeton medaled in three of the other four grand finals, including an exciting two-team battle in the third varsity race. The Tiger 3V was the second seed after an 8-1 season, and it spent the entire race challenging top-seeded Cornell for the lead. The Big Red, which handed the Tigers their only regular-season loss, fended off every challenge to hold on for gold by less than one second.
Princeton won bronze in both the 2V and 5V finals. The second varsity race saw top-seeded Harvard grab the early lead, and then let the rest of the crews try to catch them. Yale took an early charge over the first 1000 meters, but it was unable to hold that pace and finished fifth.
That left Cornell, Princeton and Columbia to mount the late challenges, and each kept Harvard within their sights, but none could get the bow in front. Harvard won the gold in 5:54.61, about 1.6 seconds ahead of second-seeded Cornell. Princeton outperformed its seed to take bronze in 5:57.43, which was less than one tenth of a second ahead of Columbia.
The 5V could not keep pace with either gold medalist Navy nor silver medalist Cornell, but its time of 6:17.28 was about four seconds faster than Harvard for the bronze. That order was reversed for the final medal spot in the 4V, as Harvard topped Princeton (6:20.60) by about nine seconds for the bronze in that race.
Princeton will now spend two more weeks looking to gain that final bit of speed before racing on nearby Mercer Lake in the 2015 IRA national championship, held May 31 in West Windsor, N.J.
VARSITY EIGHT
1 Cornell 5:40.683
2 Columbia 5:41.635
3 Princeton 5:44.573
4 Yale 5:46.323
5 Harvard 5:47.108
6 MIT 5:51.248
SECOND VARSITY EIGHT
1 Harvard 5:54.609
2 Cornell 5:56.217
3 Princeton 5:57.430
4 Columbia 5:58.253
5 Yale 5:59.927
6 Navy 6:05.052
THIRD VARSITY EIGHT
1 Cornell 5:52.694
2 Princeton 5:53.461
3 Navy 5:56.961
4 Yale 5:57.090
5 Harvard 6:03.421
6 Penn 6:05.669
FOURTH VARSITY EIGHT
1 Cornell 6:02.927
2 Navy 6:04.255
3 Harvard 6:11.429
4 Princeton 6:20.601
5 Dartmouth 6:27.919
6 Penn 6:35.484
FIFTH/SIXTH VARSITY EIGHT
1 Navy 6:04.143
2 Cornell 6:06.309
3 Princeton 5V 6:17.277
4 Harvard 6:21.735
5 Princeton 6V 6:33.825