Coming off successful outings from last weekend, the men’s heavyweight, men’s lightweight and women’s crews are looking to continue their momentum this weekend. But their competition will pose great challenge for the squads.
The men’s heavyweight crew will face Syracuse and Navy, while the men’s lightweight will race Princeton, Rutgers and Yale. The women’s crew will compete against Penn and Rutgers for the Raritan Cup this weekend in Philadelphia, Penn., marking the first home race for Penn.
The women’s crew will look to improve its results from last week after placing third behind Princeton and Radcliffe in the Class of ’75 Cup held at Princeton. However, Penn will also be looking to rebound, as the Quakers are coming off a third-place finish in the Orange Cup behind Syracuse and Northwestern.
The men’s heavyweight crew will travel to Syracuse tomorrow, where it will race against the Orange and Navy for the rights to the Goes Trophy and the Stagg Trophy. The Goes trophy is awarded to the fastest varsity boat and the team with the fastest combined times of all the crews will take home the Stagg Trophy.
“It is always really competitive because these crews are all about the same speed. It is hard to call a favorite on this one so it is always really exciting,” head coach Dan Roock said.
Cornell will have to pull hard to come away with hardware, as Syracuse is coming off a win against No. 14 Rutgers in the Ten Eyck Cup.
The Red will be back in the water after two weeks off following a victory over Georgetown on April 1.
“Everyone is excited to go race because we have been doing a lot of fundamental work and basic training and now we are finally doing speed work. … I am excited because we are on the verge of getting up to a pretty decent speed and there is nothing like competition to bring that out, so we will see this weekend what we really have,” Roock said.
Navy has also had a successful start to the season. At the George Washington Invitational last weekend, the Midshipmen took the team title after winning all four races.
“The exciting thing is that last week Georgetown and Navy raced each other and were competitive … so Navy and us are going to be very close in speed, I think,” Roock said.
The men’s lightweight crew will compete against Princeton and Rutgers this weekend at Princeton. The Red raced against Harvard and Penn last weekend, beating Penn in every race, but fell to Harvard in the first and second varsity boats.
Princeton has some momentum coming into the race after taking the Frosburgh Cup this past weekend against Georgetown to earn its first win of the season.
The Scarlet Knights competed against several teams this past weekend, finishing second-to-last in a field that included Harvard, Navy, Columbia, Georgetown, and Delaware.
Archived article by Catherine Bourque
Sun Staff Writer