Last Sunday the Dartmouth men's heavyweight, lightweight and women's crews all headed south to Princeton, N.J., for their second fall regatta of the season, the Princeton Chase.
All three crews brought multiple boats to the Chase. While the women's crew entered three boats in the women's varsity eight race, it also had a novice team of freshmen competing. The men's heavyweight and lightweight teams entered two boats each in the eight-seat events, and even more boats in the four-seat competitions.
The races on Sunday were a slight departure from the boisterous atmosphere of the Head of the Charles the the Big Green faced the week prior in Boston.
"This was a traditional race setting," women's captain Kate Harney '09 said. "The Head of the Charles is more like a rowing exhibition. This was a very serious, quiet race."
The time-trial format at Princeton, however, was the same as at the Head of the Charles. Dartmouth had up to four boats competing in every event in which the Big Green was registered, and the boats started in staggered positions depending on whether they were A, B or C levels.
"The whole women's varsity team raced," Harney said. "We brought the entire team down, and we did reasonably well."
The Dartmouth women's A boat finished in 11th place out of 44 boats with a time of 15:52.523, while the B boat crossed the course in 16th place in 16:08.171. The C boat finished in a respectable 30th place out of 43 in 16:47.989, above several A and B boats from other schools.
The Big Green competed against a blend of familiar Ivy League foes and fresh competition. The Princeton Chase featured the likes of larger schools like Indiana University and the University of Minnesota.
"We saw a lot of new competition," Harney said. "It was good to compare ourselves with schools from the Big 10."
While an 11th-place finish put Dartmouth ahead of many respectable crews like Indiana and several other Ivy League A boats, Harney was careful to stress that Dartmouth's performance was not the team's best.
"We expected to do better than we did," Harney said. "We still have a lot of work to do to catch up to the Yales of the world."
The Yale University crew was a force to be reckoned with over the weekend. The Bulldogs crushed the competition by a 21-second margin, securing first place in the Women's Varsity Eight despite a 20-second penalty.
"Comparatively, we have a lot more work to do," Harney said. "If we're going to compete with the big dogs, it's an issue of getting stronger and getting tougher."
Both men's teams had to deal with dominant Yale crews as well. Along with the women's crews, Yale's men took home first in every major varsity event at the Chase.
The Big Green heavyweights competed in the varsity eight and the varsity four with mixed results. In the heavyweight eight, the Big Green's A boat was nipped by Trinity College's A boat by .24 seconds to place 13th with a time of 13:59.561. The B boat finished 32nd out of 40 boats in 14:41.119.
"It was a better race than the Head of the Charles, and we beat some teams that we had lost to," captain Sandy Hull '09 said. "But we had a couple of bobbles with a few bad strokes, and our sprint wasn't very pretty."
In a race that was also dominated by Yale, the Big Green lightweight eight A boat managed a solid ninth place out of 30 teams, finishing in 14:04.923. The B boat did not race well, finishing in last place.
In the varsity heavyweight four, the Big Green's A boat placed 11th out of 48 boats with a time of 15:44.873.
"[The four] was kind of a crazy race," Hull said. "We crashed oars with some other crews going around a corner, which definitely hurt our time."
While the A boat managed a respectable showing in the four, Dartmouth's B, C and D crews were less than stellar. None of those boats finished higher than 41st place.
"There were a couple of bright spots, but it wasn't very good on the whole," Hull said of the day. "It was good in the sense that we can improve, and we still have a lot that we can gain."
For both the men's heavyweight team and the women's team, the novices' performances on Sunday were a sign of good things to come for Dartmouth.
The women's novice eight, consisting of eight freshmen, notched a sixth-place finish out of 16 boats in the women's novice race in 17:27.477. The heavyweight freshmen crossed the line in their novice race in 14:42.213, good enough for fifth place out of 16 crews.
The Big Green also did well in the small field of the lightweight freshmen event, finishing in fourth place out of 14 teams with a time of 14:45.675.
"They exceeded expectations in all degrees," Harney said. "It bodes well for building the program.
After a few weeks off, the varsity teams will look to continue improving when they get back into the water at a familiar venue, the Foot of the Charles River, on Saturday, Nov 22 in Boston.
