Heavyweights Send Top Two Eights To IRA Finals; Schedule Flip Moves 1V Final To 7:30 am

Saturday, June 2

West Windsor, N.J.

8:00 AM

Princeton University

IRA Day 2

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

Heavyweights Send Top Two Eights To IRA Finals; Schedule Flip Moves 1V Final To 7:30 am

June 02, 2018 | Heavyweight Rowing

For the sixth straight year, the Princeton heavyweights will race for the IRA national championship. The Tigers earned that distinction Saturday morning by placing third in their semifinal heat, a time that was nearly four seconds faster than fourth-place Syracuse. The 1V will join both the 2V and the V4 in the chase of national championships on Sunday, which saw a dramatic switch in the schedule due to projected weather.

The full updated schedule for Sunday, including all lane assignments, can be found here.

The 1V final has been moved to 7:30 am, the first race of the final IRA session. The top six seeds all advanced to the final, as the top four Ivy boats at Sprints (Yale, Harvard, Brown, and Princeton) will join the powerful Western duo of Washington and California Sunday on Mercer Lake in a sprint for the national title. The margins for the qualifying boats in both semifinals were tight, which could project a thriller of a grand final Sunday.

The Eastern Sprints champion 2V also got the job done, though it had to face both Washington and California in its semifinal. Those two boats grabbed the first two qualifying spots, but Princeton topped Brown by more than two seconds to comfortably qualify for the 7:51 final. That trio will join Yale, Harvard, and Northeastern in the grand final.

The Princeton 3V found itself on the wrong end of a tight semifinal battle. A vastly improved Northeastern crew, which took fifth at Sprints, jumped out and beat both California and Princeton for the second spot in a semifinal won by Washington. That left the two historic programs, both of whom have won a 3V gold in the last four years, to battle for the last spot in the final, and the Bears took it by less than two seconds.

The four had the most thrilling finish of all boats today, as it edged Harvard by less than half a second to take third in its semifinal. The fours will race at 9:08 Sunday morning for IRA gold.

VARSITY EIGHT
SEMIFINAL
Yale 5:39.243
Harvard 5:41.825
Princeton 5:43.129
Syracuse 5:46.919
Dartmouth 5:50.635
Boston University 5:58.208

GRAND FINAL (7:30 am, Lanes 2-7)
Washington
Yale
Brown
Harvard
California
Princeton

SECOND VARSITY EIGHT
SEMIFINAL
California 5:41.314
Washington 5:44.128
Princeton 5:47.495
Brown 5:49.979
Syracuse 5:50.395
Cornell 6:09.100

GRAND FINAL (7:51 am, Lanes 2-7)
Yale
California
Washington
Harvard
Princeton
Northeastern

THIRD VARSITY EIGHT
SEMIFINAL
Washington 5:50.155
Northeastern 5:52.505
California 5:53.016
Princeton 5:54.943
Wisconsin 5:57.606
Brown 5:59.859

PETITE FINAL (8:26 am, Lanes 2-7)
Dartmouth
Princeton
Wisconsin
Syracuse
Cornell
Brown

VARSITY FOUR
SEMIFINAL
Washington 6:26.013
California 6:27.943
Princeton 6:36.060
Harvard 6:36.107
Wisconsin 6:43.907
Northeastern 6:45.758

GRAND FINAL (9:08 am, Lanes 2-7)
Washington
Drexel
California
Boston University
Princeton
Holy Cross