Princeton University
NCAA Day 3
Players Mentioned
Princeton Places 12th In Deep, Fast NCAA Championship Field
May 31, 2015 | Women's Rowing - Open
"The racing was really deep, really tight, moreso than any NCAA Championship that I have been at," Dauphiny said. "Seeing the level increasing and the standard so high was impressive. The closeness of the field was exciting."
Princeton found itself on the right end of some exciting finishes, including a thrilling finish for the fours in Saturday's semifinal, but it just wasn't able to put together enough strong races over the weekend to challenge for the team championship, which was won once again by Ohio State.
"I was proud of them for doing their best and having some strong races, but I know they would have loved to do better," Dauphiny said. "They had mixed emotions afterwards, but I know they'll be driven to do better next year."
The fours were Princeton's lone representative in the grand finals, thanks to an incredible Saturday finish. The Tigers were part of a three-team sprint to the line, and they edged California for the last spot in the gold medal final.
"The last 500 meters were killer," said senior Caroline Barry. "Going into this race, we were ready for a bowball-to-bowball situation down to the line and knew our sprint could make or break us. I think we've been improving our sprint work with each row, so when Kate (cox) called for us to get on the impulse and up the rate early, everyone dug deeper than we thought we could and managed to crank out a gutsy finish. I'm so glad it paid off. Edging into finals by tenths of a second is standard at the national championship and we're honored to be one of those qualifying crews.
"As we crossed the line, we heard the second through fourth finish beeps all within a second of each other, but we didn't know which of those belonged to us," she added. "We weren't sure if we had snagged a top three finish and qualified for the grand final until the loudspeaker announced it. It was a moment of sheer exhilaration and exhaustion."
Unfortunately, that sprint didn't leave much in the tank for Sunday's final. Both Ohio State, the other finalist from the three-team semifinal sprint, and Princeton finished off the pace in the fours final, which was won by Virginia in 7:12.760.
The varsity eight had a thrilling Friday performance, when it knocked off a higher-seeded Yale boat to reach the semifinals directly. The Tigers ended up finishing fifth in the petite final in 6:32.405, though they were the second-best Ivy boat in the varsity eight field.
The second varsity had a tougher weekend, going through the repechages Friday and falling into the C final, but they made Dauphiny proud with a strong Sunday effort. The Tigers got out early in the field and won their race in 6:46.443, about 2.5 seconds faster than Harvard.
"It isn't easy to not do as well as you wanted during the weekend and come back, but they did it and had a great race today," Dauphiny said. "We had our highlights this weekend. The fours race Saturday was awesome, and the varsity had a great race Friday. We needed to be a bit more consistent, but that also had to do with the increasing depth in our sport.
"It's exciting to see where our sport is going, and I know it's a challenge to us to keep getting faster with everybody else."
VARSITY EIGHT PETITE FINAL
Brown 6:24.727
Michigan 6:27.251
Washington State 6:29.013
Indiana 6:31.165
Princeton 6:32.405
Harvard 6:34.510
SECOND VARSITY EIGHT C FINAL
Princeton 6:46.443
Harvard 6:48.978
USC 6:56.421
Northeastern 7:00.674
Notre Dame 7:02.703
Massachusetts 7:02.760
VARSITY FOUR GRAND FINAL
Virginia 7:12.760
Yale 7:12.920
Brown 7:13.070
Washington 7:21.730
Ohio State 7:23.710
Princeton 7:29.930