Courtesy: Princeton Athletic CommunicationsOne year after being the team upset in the women's lightweight grand final, Princeton has aspirations of turning the tables this Sunday at the 2009 EAWRC championships on Cooper River in Camden, N.J.
In 2008, Princeton completed a perfect regular season and headed into the Eastern Sprints grand final as the top seed, but it lost a heartbreaking race to Wisconsin by .8 of a second. The Tigers didn't recover in time for the IRA national championships and ended up missing the medal stand altogether.
Head coach Paul Rassam had different intentions altogether this season. He put his team on a season-long schedule to ensure that it would be fastest for the postseason. That will be tested this weekend when Princeton rows Sunday at 2:55 p.m. in the grand final against Wisconsin, Harvard, Georgetown and MIT. Princeton is 2-2 on the year against that grouping; the Tigers lost the season opener against Wisconsin and the season finale at Harvard, and it topped both Georgetown and MIT in the middle of the season.
Rassam has been pleased with the progress of the team throughout the season, and without any preliminary heats to contend with, he is looking for the fastest 2,000 meters possible against some of the nation's strongest crews. Wisconsin is ranked first in the country and has yet to be beaten, while Harvard is tied for second with Stanford, a team Princeton defeated during the opening weekend of the season. Stanford is the lone national power that will not be at Eastern Sprints, so this weekend will provide a strong preview of the upcoming IRA national championships.
Lane assignments for the grand final are: (1) MIT, (2) Princeton, (3) WIsconsin, (4) Harvard and (5) Georgetown
Princeton will also send a four to the EAWRC championships, where it will take on Wisconsin and novice fours from both Wisconsin and Georgetown at 1:25 p.m.
