Although the Dartmouth men's heavyweight and women's crew teams couldn't secure victories against some of their top Ivy League rivals this weekend, the men's lightweight team had a solid weekend with wins against both Yale University and Columbia University.
In spite of perfect conditions and a home-course advantage, Brown University was able to edge out Dartmouth to take the top spot in one of the fastest races of the men's heavyweight crew season so far.
Brown remained a few strokes behind Dartmouth towards the end of the race, but when the Big Green slowed down slightly in the last 200 meters, the Bears were able to inch ahead of Dartmouth to win by a mere .7 seconds.
"We worked really, really hard," captain Alex Pujol '11 said. "Everyone completely emptied the tank."
The team also faced the challenge of having a new starting lineup that had only practiced together for one day prior to the race, Pujol said. He added that it was very encouraging that the team was able to maintain intensity and stay so close to such a highly-ranked crew throughout the race.
"We will have a little more time with the lineup in the next few weeks," he said. "Everybody felt pretty good as good as you can feel with a loss."
The race was faster than many typical races due to a strong tail wind, and Pujol said the favorable conditions made everybody "push themselves just a little bit harder."
The heavyweight team will be back on the Connecticut River in yet another home race against the University of Wisconsin and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology next week. Last year, the Big Green defeated Wisconsin at the Eastern Sprints in a huge upset against one of the top-three teams in the nation, and Pujol said he hopes to repeat that performance this year.
"We know they're going to be really fast," he said. "We're just going to try to improve over the course of the week and put together a good race."
After last-minute changes due to inclement weather, the women's team was out-rowed by number one Princeton University but managed to finish ahead of the University of Pennsylvania.
Both the first varsity and second varsity boats raced on Saturday morning, with the former finishing 9.5 seconds behind Princeton and the latter losing by 9.6 seconds.
Captain Emily Dreissigacker '11 said that the uncertainty as to when the teams would race initially rattled the team, but the rowers ultimately handled the changes very well.
In the first varsity race, the team's focused mentality helped it to overtake Penn, according to Dreissigacker.
"We sort of went into thinking that we need to deal with Penn and shut them down before we can focus on Princeton at all," she said. "But then we didn't really hold on to Princeton as much as I would have liked to."
Looking ahead to the team's doubleheader next week against Cornell University, Duke University, the University of Iowa and the University of Rhode Island, Dreissigacker said the team would focus on getting a "faster sprint." She added that this weekend will be a "great opportunity to see other teams," but that a lot of the focus will be on beating Cornell.
"In past years, we've beaten [Cornell], but they're looking really fast this year," she said. "So it will be a tough race, but a good race."
The men's lightweight rowing team was able to put its best foot forward and beat both Yale and Columbia in its doubleheader this past weekend.
Saturday's conditions were perfect for racing at Yale, and the men finished almost three seconds ahead of Yale's boat.
Captain Phil Henson '11 said the Yale victory was especially exciting because the two teams finished in a tie last year and neither school was awarded the Durand Cup.
Dartmouth took first place against Columbia by an almost 10-second margin to retain the Subin Cup it claimed after beating the Lions last year.
"We knew going into the weekend that we had a real capacity for speed," Henson said. "It was just a matter of putting it all out there on the water and racing really hard."
Henson added that this weekend was great inspiration for the team with the Eastern Sprints only three weeks away.
"These are small tests to see how the team's been coming together," he said. "It's always good to see that your training is paying off and that you're moving in the right direction."
The lightweight team will try to keep up the momentum from this weekend and beat Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. next Saturday.
"Last year they beat us, so we're hoping to reverse that this year," Henson said. "It should be a fun race."
