Courtesy: Tom NowakThe 2009 IRA national championship regatta, which crowns champions in men's heavyweight, men's lightweight and women's lightweight rowing, will begin Thursday morning on Lake Natoma in Sacramento, Calif.
Only the men's heavies will compete all three days; the competition will begin Thursday at 8 a.m. PST with the first of four V8+ heats. The Tigers are in the first heat and will need a top-two finish to move into one of the two semifinal heats on Friday. Seeded 17th and rowing from lane one, Princeton will have a tough task in its heat; the Tigers will row against ninth-seed Northeastern (lane two), top-seed California (lane three), eighth-seed Cornell (lane four) and 16th-seed Oregon State.
Should Princeton, which hasn't raced since the May 10 EARC championships, manage an upset and knock off three of the four higher-seeded boats, it will race at either 11:45 or 12:00 on Friday in the A or B semifinal. If Princeton finishes third or worse, the Tigers will compete in one of four repechages Thursday afternoon; to reach the A or B semifinal, Princeton would need to win that race. Anything short of a repechage win sends a team into the C or D semifinal and clinches no better than a third-level grand final on Saturday.
Princeton does not have a second varsity entered into the field, but it does have a trio of other boats. The freshman eight is ranked seventh overall and rows in the 10 a.m. heat against 13th-seed Boston University, top-seed Washington, sixth-seed Wisconsin, 12th-seed Northeastern and 18th-seed Cal-San Diego. The winner of each heat advances directly to the finals; the rest of the field will be sorted out in Friday morning repechages.
Princeton also has an open four and varsity four competing, and both row in their opening heats Thursday morning. The Tiger open four will compete at 10:24, while the varsity four competes at 11 a.m. Like the freshman eight, only the winner of the heats go directly to the finals.
While Friday will feature the heavyweights in both repechages and semifinals, it will also mark the first race for the Princeton women's lightweights. The Tigers haven't won a national championship since 2003, but head coach Paul Rassam has been pushing his squad so that it would be its fastest in the postseason. Princeton is coming off a second-place finish at the EAWRC championships on May 17 and will need its best performance of the season to defeat top-seed and defending champion Wisconsin in the 11 a.m. grand final on Saturday.
Championships will be determined Saturday, and that is when the Princeton men's lightweights will compete for the first and only time during the weekend. At 11:30, a seven-team final will take place, and all eyes will be on the undefeated and Eastern champion Princeton Tigers. Under head coach Greg Hughes, the 2009 squad posted a perfect record and won the EARC and Ivy League championship on May 10. It will be four weeks between races, but Hughes is hopeful the positive momentum hasn't gone anywhere since the Tigers' first Eastern title since 2003.
