Against some of the nation's best teams in Camden, N.J., the women's rowing team qualified three boats for the grand finals of the Sprints.
The women's team placed sixth in their first varsity race. They finished second in their heat to Yale, qualifying for grand finals. With a dominant performance, however, Princeton's time of 6:50.18 bested second-place Brown by eight seconds, and also beat Yale, Boston University, Radcliffe and Dartmouth (7:12.28), respectively.
The second varsity squad topped its 14th-place seeding by finishing 11th in the contest as Brown coasted to first place.
The novice squads had Dartmouth's best performances of the day. Not only did both squads qualify for grand finals, but the second novice eight took gold in its race with a time of 7:26.56. The first novice eight placed third in its race, outpaced by Princeton and Brown.
The men's heavyweight squad, however, suffered disappointment this weekend. In the team's final race of the regular season Saturday, it saw its 15-year stranglehold on the Packard Cup come to an end after Syracuse swept Dartmouth's squads.
In the first varsity eight race, Syracuse's blistering 5:46.3 time overcame the Big Green, which finished in 6:10.6.
Captain Robert Carey '06 explained some of the difficulties in the week preceding the race. "We had a tough week, with a lot of personnel changes leading up to this race," he said.
In the second varsity eight, Syracuse fielded two squads. Dartmouth fell to third place in what proved to be a very compelling race as Syracuse's 5:56.3 was good enough for the victory. Syracuse's third varsity squad clocked in at 6:02.3, two seconds faster than the Dartmouth boat.
The freshman eight race was extremely close, as both boats were separated by fractions of a second. However, Syracuse was just too strong, finishing in 5:56.06 to edge Dartmouth (5:56.7).
According to Dan Donoho '06, the team's impressive performance was indicative of recent improvements the team has made. "The JV race showed that our crew has picked up significant speed in the last month," he said.
Next week, the heavyweight squad will compete in the Eastern Sprints in Worcester, Mass., where it will row against some familiar faces and look to improve on earlier races.
"We need to spend the upcoming week in our lineup and work some kinks out of our rowing," Carey said. "We're hoping to use this week to get faster so we can chase down some crews, who were well ahead of us earlier in the season, at Eastern Sprints this weekend."
