Cornell hopes to continue its strong start to the rowing season as the women’s team hosts Princeton and Radcliffe this Saturday morning in Ithaca. The winning team will be able to bring home the Class of ’75 Cup.

The Red was busy all of last weekend with races against Yale, Syracuse, Gonzaga and Michigan State. Although Yale took home the Cayuga Cup, Cornell had a solid performance and challenged both Yale and Syracuse for the lead. The Red was dominant against Gonzaga, winning all of the five races, but then struggled against Michigan State, where it dropped four out of six races.Playin' for keeps: The women’s rowing team will have the opportunity to play Princeton and Radcliffe after bad weather and poor lake conditions prevented the teams from meeting last season. - By: Beth Spergel

Princeton comes into this weekend after an outstanding performance last week by sweeping all four of its races at home against Columbia and Rutgers. However, Radcliffe, the name of Harvard’s women’s team, is visiting Cornell after struggling against Brown team by dropping four out of five head-to-head races. Radcliffe may have struggled last week, but the team is still formidable as can be seen from a fifth place finish earlier this year in the 2010 San Diego Crew Classic.

History suggests that Princeton will have a successful weekend as the crew has won the last two cups and 18 out of 20 overall. However, despite Princeton’s dominance in this particular meet, the Red feels confident for this season’s competition.

“We want to win. The races against these teams have been good challenges in the past,” said senior captain Harlan Trevithick.

Both Princeton and Radcliffe are great teams and Cornell is fully aware of that. Even though the Red finished third behind the two teams last year, the team feels this year may bring different results.

“Obviously both Princeton and Radcliffe are very strong teams. With that said, we’re more confident in our abilities and skills this year to get the win,” Trevithick said.

The team goes into the weekend with this mentality after not performing at their best level last year because of outside factors.

“The conditions last year were bad and we haven’t had the chance to beat them yet,” Trevithick said.

This weekend may also be a time for the team to try out new things in order to improve. Because the novice league was eliminated this year and freshmen can compete in the varsity boats, the lineups could drastically change. Head coach Hilary Gehman is willing to try out different things to find the right formula for success.

“To find the fastest combination of boats, we’ll be using the weekend competitions to test different lineups,” Gehman said.

In particular, coach Gehman is looking for improvements from the first and second varsity-eight teams and the varsity-four team. These squads must have solid performances to make the NCAA championship at the end of this season.

“We need to improve on our first and second varsity boats and we’re also looking for a more competitive varsity four team,” Gehman said.