With the fury of the underdog, the Georgetown men’s and women’s lightweight crews have started their seasons with key race wins. However, since both men’s programs had success at the Jesuit Invitational, the heavymeight men and openweight women’s programs have slipped in their early season marquee matchups.
For the second year in a row, and third time in four years, the men’s lightweight crew upset Princeton’s highly touted squad on their home course at Lake Carnegie. This year’s Tiger crew entered the 2000-meter spring sprint season ranked first nationally, while the Hoyas vaulted to fifth in the country after their victory over Boston College. “I think we’ve done a good job of getting off on the right foot,” Andy Belden, Georgetown men’s lightweight head coach said.
The day started out roughly for Georgetown, as they dropped their first two matchups. Both the first and second lightweight freshman crews were thoroughly overwhelmed by their Princeton counterparts, who benefitted from more recruits and experience on their home course. Princeton won the freshman race with a time of 6:19 to Columbia’s 6:25.1 and Georgetown’s 6:32.2 and 6:41.1 in their first and second boats respectively. The Hoyas’ rough start continued with the second varsity race, in which Princeton topped Georgetown and Columbia again. Princeton got out to a solid lead on the Hoyas in the first 500 meters of the race and never looked back. Georgetown made a brief comeback, leaving Columbia in its wake, but was unable to catch up to the early lead Princeton had gained on the start and then extended in the finishing 250 meters. “It seemed like we rowed a pretty good race, but they just had too much speed,” said senior Will Sheridan.
Luckily, the Hoyas saved their best effort for last. Stroked with powerful composure by junior Cameron Booth, Georgetown’s first varsity boat overcame an early four-seat deficit to trounce the Tigers and Lions, finishing at a blistering 6:00.8 to Princeton’s 6:03.2 and Columbia’s 6:13.8. As in the first two races, Princeton got out to an early lead, but was unable to hold the advantage against the Hoyas’ overwhelming base speed. The Tigers took an extended start, longer than the standard 30-35 strokes, and used the early burst at a higher tempo to stretch their lead to nearly half a boat-length over Georgetown. Approximately 1000 meters into the race, the Hoyas took a powerful and long twenty stroke move which sliced into Princeton’s advantage. From that point on, Georgetown passed the Princeton boat like a knife cutting through butter, passing and then creating distance between themselves and the Tigers. “We just decided that we weren’t going to lose that race,” junior Bradford Kuntscher said. Princeton made a valiant final charge in the final 250 meter sprint, but was unable to get within the three seat margin the Hoyas had gained during their move.
While the lightweight men have started the season with an unequivocal bang, their female counterparts have met with mixed results. Most recently, the women’s lightweight eight trounced MIT, while their four topped Navy and the Georgetown openweight women, and their novice eight also raced past MIT.
With a strong tailwind and choppy water the Hoya women dominated MIT throughout, finishing with a 5:41 to 6:14.2 win. The crew took control at the start, which required a floating alignment because the wind was too strong to start from a fixed position. The novice eight enjoyed similar domination over MIT. Meanwhile, the most highly contested matchup of the morning’s races was between fours from both openweight and lightweight squads. The Hoya lightweight four was able to prevail by the slightest of margins, a 6:20.4 to 6:20.8 winner over a hard charging Navy squad. If Navy’s cadence would have created an extra stroke at the finish line it is likely the Midshipwomen would have won, but instead the Hoyas got the last stroke and the win. The Georgetown openweights finished third at 6:34.7, and MIT was left as an also ran, finishing at 7:02.
The MIT victory was an important one for the crew to bounce back from losses to Princeton and Harvard-Radcliffe at the Windmere Classic in Palo Alto, Ca. At the two-day event of dual racing, the Hoya lightweights raced past host Stanford in their opening race by nearly five seconds, before being outmuscled by Princeton and falling to Radcliffe by a close two seconds.
The openweight women opened the season with a loss to both Penn’s first and second varsity in Philadelphia. The Quakers’ varsity four also topped the Hoyas, and only the squad’s first freshman eight was able to salvage a win. The varsity eight then fell to North Carolina, Indiana, and Boston University before getting their first win at MIT. The team’s varsity four scrapped out a win over Indiana and their Hoya lightweight counterparts at the Indiana-UNC race, but also fell to BU before topping MIT.
While the openweight women have had a rough go thus far, the heavyweight men have had the worst luck of the Georgetown crews in the early season. After their season opening Jesuit Inviational title, the men’s first and second varsity boats have been solidly defeated by Rutgers and Cornell. The team’s first and second novice squads, which have both topped Rutger’s and Cornell, have maintained the team’s season opening momentum and have been a bright spot for the season and the program’s future. The men’s lightweight team has another big race on Saturday when the visit top-ranked Navy. The lighweight women also return to action, competing for the Knect Cup Regatta in Camden, Nj.
