Princeton University Athletics
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Princeton Ready To Thrive In Underdog Role At 2015 NCAA Championships
May 27, 2015 | Women's Rowing - Open
LIVE VIDEO l LIVE RESULTS l PRINCETON HISTORY AT THE NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Princeton open rowing team will return to the NCAA Championships this weekend. This hardly registers as a surprise, considering the Tigers are one of only three teams to compete at all 19 NCAA Championship regattas.
The fact that they will head to Gold River, Calif., as something of a dark horse in another loaded field is something new, and this Princeton team doesn't mind it.
“We are definitely looking to improve from our performance at Ivies, so I think that the team can lay out some of our best races of the season in California,” said junior Meghan Wheeler, a two-year member of the first varsity boat. “It is going to be exciting to see some competition who have beaten us in the past. Going in feeling a bit like an underdog has advantages, and we are looking to utilize that mentality to lay out some fierce races.”
Princeton will send its 1V, 2V and V4 to Lake Natoma at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center for this weekend's NCAA Championships, held Friday-Sunday (full schedule listed at the bottom of this story). While the first varsity will be looking to return to the championship final and contend for the third NCAA gold medal in the last decade, the team will also be looking to build upon last year's sixth-place team finish.
To do so, Princeton will have to outperform its seed in multiple boats. Both the varsity eight and the varsity four are seeded ninth after earning bronze medals at the Ivy League Championships two weeks ago, while the second varsity is seeded 14th after a fourth-place finish at Ivies.
The first varsity will begin its competition Friday at 9:10 am Pacific time with a heat against California, Yale, USC and Gonzaga. While the Golden Bears are the top-seeded boat in the field, the matchup to watch will be between Ivy rivals Yale and Princeton in Lanes 2-3. The top two boats move directly to the A/B semifinals, so assuming California takes care of business, the loser of the Princeton-Yale race will have to spend an extra 2,000 meters on the water.
Princeton defeated Yale on the Housatonic River during the Eisenberg Cup weekend, but the Bulldogs came back at Ivies to move past the Tigers for the silver medal. Princeton is hoping to use that Ivy final as a springboard to a much better performance this weekend.
“The Ivy final is definitely a race that we want to improve upon looking towards racing at NCAAs,” Wheeler said. “We went out and raced our hardest against some great competition, but there were a few key moments in the body of the piece during which we need to find more speed. We are really excited to move forward and work on improving in the next few days before our next race.”
Whether it takes one or two races to get there, Princeton will have a big chip on its shoulder in Saturday's semifinals. One of the most gut-wrenching results for any Princeton boat over the last decade came in the 2014 NCAA semifinal; four boats were separated by less than half a second, but the Tigers were the odd team out and missed the grand final by .23 of a second.
“I don't think I'll forget that semifinal and a big reason for that was the people that I shared the experience with,” said junior Erin Reelick, who competed with — among others — her older sister Kelsey in that boat. “Obviously it was an incredibly tough race and the result was upsetting so I think the returning members of that boat are pretty motivated to find some sort of redemption this year.”
The A/B Saturday semifinals will take place at 8:50 and 9:00 am (all times Pacific); Sunday's NCAA V8 championship final will take place at 11:12 am.
The second varsity will compete in the 10:10 heat Friday against Brown, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Northeastern and Jacksonville. The boat went 6-4 during the season and missed the medal stand at Ivies by six seconds.
“The team is extremely grateful to be going to the NCAAs and to have the chance to prove ourselves once again,” senior Liza McBride said. “I don't think that anyone on the team had regrets after our Ivy final. The results were disappointing, but the racing itself was not a disappointment because it was clear that everyone had put their whole heart into it.
“We certainly feel that others see us as an underdog, but having that frame of mind has its advantages and I think it has only motivated us to work that much harder,” she added.
The second varsity will bring some positive memories from last year's NCAA Championships, when they earned the silver medal in their respective grand final. Six members of that boat remain, including three who will likely compete the 2V this weekend.
The varsity four, which has had as many as three freshmen in the boat during the season, will compete at 10:30 am against Washington, Michigan, Indiana and Gonzaga. Melissa Curtis was one of the three freshmen in the four at Ivies, and she will get her first taste of the NCAA Championships this weekend.
“Sometimes I get pretty nervous, but then I remind myself how hard my boat and the whole team has worked,” Curtis said. “I think that having some nerves is a really good thing, but being overly nervous never helps me. There's no perfect balance between nerves and excitement, but I like to have a little of each.”
NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS WEEKEND SCHEDULE
ALL TIMES LISTED ARE PACIFIC
FRIDAY
| 9:10 am | First Varsity | Heat 1, Lane 3 |
| 10:10 am | Second Varsity | Heat 3, Lane 4 |
| 10:30 am | Varsity Four | Heat 1, Lane 3 |
| 3:50/4 pm | First Varsity | Repechages |
| 4:10/4:20 pm | Second Varsity | Repechages |
| 4:30/4:40 pm | Varsity Four | Repechages |
SATURDAY
| 8:30/8:40 am | First Varsity | C/D Semifinals |
| 8:50/9 am | First Varsity | A/B Semifinals |
| 9:10/9:20 am | Second Varsity | C/D Semifinals |
| 9:30/9:40 am | Second Varsity | A/B Semifinals |
| 9:50/10 am | Varsity Four | C/D Semifinals |
| 10:10/10:20 am | Varsity Four | A/B Semifinals |
SUNDAY (All 3rd & 4th Level Finals are before 9:30)
| 10:12 am | Varsity Four | C/D Semifinals |
| 10:24 am | Varsity Four | A/B Semifinals |
| 10:36 am | Second Varsity | C/D Semifinals |
| 10:48 am | Second Varsity | A/B Semifinals |
| 11 am | First Varsity | C/D Semifinals |
| 11:12 am | First Varsity | A/B Semifinals |