Courtesy: Princeton Athletic CommunicationsHead coach Paul Rassam has set a season-long gameplan of patient growth for his mostly inexperienced women's lightweight squad. One weekend in, Rassam is pleased with the progress. His first varsity boat, which consists of five underclassmen, went out to Redwood Shores, Calif., and won two of three races in the season-opening Pac-Ten Challenge.
Among its three opponents in the season-opening regatta was two of the three medalists at the 2008 IRA national championships. Reigning national champion Wisconsin was the first opponent and earned a tight win over Princeton; the Badgers won the race in 6:46.9, while Princeton finished in 6:50.0. The Tigers came back with a convincing win over California later on Saturday, finishing in 6:58.0 for a nearly 20-second victory over the Golden Bears.
Sunday featured only one race for Princeton, but the Tigers made the most of it. Against 2008 bronze medalist Stanford, Princeton went out and won by two seconds to leave with a 2-1 record (times will be posted when available).
"Since the first and third teams from IRAs were here, we knew it would be a good test," Rassam said afterwards. "I thought it went really well. We are being patient with developing our speed. It was a really good start, considering we haven't done too much speedwork at this point."
Princeton will make its home debut next Saturday when it races MIT at Lake Carnegie.
