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Ivy Champion Tiger Women Bring Momentum, Speed To NCAA Championships
May 25, 2016 | Women's Rowing - Open
WEEKEND LINKS: Live Video l Live Results l @TigerWCrew l @PUTigers_Live
FEATURES: Princeton Stuns No. 1 Brown For Ivy Title l 2006 Tigers Made NCAA History
Princeton has thrived as the underdog all season, and most especially at the Ivy League Championships the previous weekend, but it won't sneak up on anybody at the 2016 NCAA Championships, held May 27-29 at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center in Gold River, Calif.
That's what happens when you knock off the No. 1 team in the country in your last outing, and when you haven't lost since March.
Princeton has all three of its NCAA boats seeded among the Top 6, though the Ivy League champion 1V will enter the weekend as the fourth seed. Both the 2V and the V4 will be the sixth seed.
Princeton is one of three teams that has competed in all 20 NCAA Championships regattas, and it has won three individual national titles. The Tiger 2V won gold in the original championship meet, while the 1V won gold in both 2006 and 2011.
Whether Princeton can add to that total remains to be seen, but the Tigers can contend for another Top-5 team finish if each of the three can maintain their seeds and reach their Sunday grand finals. Princeton has finished in the Top 5 nine times, including four times between 2010 and 2013.
That being said, the Tigers finished 12th last year, a finish that served as terrific motivation throughout the year.
“After that weekend, we talked a lot as a senior class about how we could make this year different,” senior Brett Simpson, a member of the Ivy champion V8, said. “We got lucky with such a powerful freshman class to help make it happen. We're all excited to see what every boat can do.”
Here is a quick look at all three boats, with their full NCAA schedules.
VARSITY EIGHT (9-2, Ivy League champion)
Seed: 4th
Opening Heat: 9:36 am PT (third heat)
Saturday A/B Semifinal Times: 8:36/8:48 am PT
Sunday Petite/Grand Final Times: 10:48/11:00 am PT
On first glance, the opening weekend may not have looked so good for Princeton, which lost to both Brown and Ohio State on Lake Carnegie.
Look again, though. Brown was the reigning Ivy champion, and Princeton was within three seconds. Ohio State was the reigning NCAA champion, and Princeton was within .3 of a second.
In other words, the Tigers were right there with two of the best boats in the country, and they have only gotten better since then. Princeton won nine straight races afterwards, and then it knocked off Brown to win its fourth league crown in the last six years.
“Winning Ivies on Carnegie was undeniably awesome,” Simpson said. “It showed our boat what we could achieve with focus and intention. But it was also just another step toward gaining more speed, like every other weekend so far this season. We know that we're still working toward that speed in every practice until our next race.”
Princeton is seeded behind California, Stanford and Ohio State in the V8 field, and it will take on Virginia, Washington, Washington State, Rhode Island and Navy in its opening heat. A top-two finish would send the Tigers into Saturday's semifinals; the Tigers didn't race any of those boats during the season.
SECOND VARSITY EIGHT (8-3, Ivy League silver medalist)
Seed: 6th
Opening Heat: 10:12 am PT (third heat)
Saturday A/B Semifinal Times: 9:24/9:36 am PT
Sunday Petite/Grand Final Times: 10:24/10:36 am PT
Despite being overshadowed by the gold medal-winning 1V, the Princeton 2V produced a major effort at the Ivy League championships.
On March 26, Brown defeated Princeton by 16 seconds.
On April 16, Yale defeated Princeton by three seconds.
In the Ivy final, Princeton lost to Brown by one second and topped Yale by about five.
“We were really excited with our final race at Ivies,” sophomore Rachel Reed said. “Our loss to Brown had been in our first race of the season and we were eager to race them again. We'd also lost to Yale a few weeks prior but we had just been using that as motivation to try and improve throughout the rest of our training. We've definitely made huge strides as a boat even just within the racing season, which has been really exciting to see.
“Going off of that, we've still been looking to make improvements,” Reed added. “Even with just a quick couple of weeks to train coupled with finishing final exams, our program has been super focused on our goals for NCAAs. I feel good about the work that we've been doing and the 2V is definitely getting psyched up for the upcoming races.”
Reed is one of 11 Princeton rowers/coxswains who will be making their NCAA Championships debuts. How is this for a balanced lineup? Of the 23 Princeton student-athletes who will travel to California, six are freshmen, six are sophomores, six are juniors and five are seniors.
“Personally, I'm thrilled to be competing at my first NCAA championship,” Reed said. “I've never raced that type of format before but the training that we've been doing here all year has been gearing us up to be ready for something like that. We've done plenty of hard practices back to back and even had a few instances now of racing twice in one day. Recovery is really important so that's something I'm definitely going to be focused on when we're training in California.”
If the 2V wants to avoid an extra 2000 meters, it needs to take a top-two finish in its 10:12 am PT heat on Friday. The sixth-seeded Tigers will race against Ohio State, Duke, Michigan, Navy and Jacksonville. Ohio State defeated Princeton by about 12 seconds on March 26, while Princeton beat Duke by about three seconds on April 30.
VARSITY FOUR (8-3, Ivy League silver medalist)
Seed: 6th
Opening Heat: 11:00 am PT (third heat)
Saturday A/B Semifinal Times: 10:12/10:24 am PT
Sunday Petite/Grand Final Times: 10:00/10:12 am PT
The varsity four basically matched the effort of the 2V; it made significant gains against the two boats that it beat it during the Ivy League season, and completely flipped one of the two results.
After losing to Yale by about nine seconds during the season, the Tigers pushed the Bulldogs all the way before finally losing by about two seconds. And they edged past a Brown boat that had beaten Princeton by nearly 12 seconds earlier in the year.
Princeton sophomore coxswain Kate Elfers coxed the V4 at NCAAs last year, and she'll return in that boat this year, but all four projected rowers will have combined for zero NCAA Championship races in their career, and each of the four — two of whom are freshmen — will return next season.
The four opens with a heat against Virginia, Michigan, Syracuse, Navy and Jacksonville; Princeton didn't race any of those boats during the season.