All three of Dartmouth's crew teams will compete in the Eastern Sprints Championship one of the most highly anticipated regattas in the region this Sunday. The Big Green's competitors will include the seven other Ivy League schools as well as a number of East Coast colleges with strong crew teams.
The men's heavyweight and lightweight teams will compete in Worcester, Mass., while the women will race in Cherry Hill, N.J. Both men's teams will send five boats to Sprints first, second and third varsity, as well as two from the freshman teams. The Big Green women will send four boats to New Jersey their top three varsity eight boats and their varsity four boat.
The teams' hard work throughout the season will culminate in this competition, according to lightweight crew captain Philip Henson '11.
"For all intents and purposes, Eastern Sprints is the National Championship," he said. "Our goal from day one is to win Sprints. It's where the Ivy League schools battle it out for the Ivy trophy."
The race beings early on Sunday with event heats in the morning followed by finals later in the day. The top two finishers of each heat in the morning events will advance to the Grand Finals in the afternoon, where they will compete for first, second and third place medals.
Dartmouth's heavyweight boat will faceoff against Princeton University, Boston University, Yale University, George Washington University and The College of the Holy Cross in the morning heat. This lineup of competitors will not be easy to beat, according to Alex Pujol '11.
"We'll probably have to go as hard as we can in the morning to make the finals," he said. "Princeton and [Boston University] are definitely two of the best teams. We're just hoping that we can keep up and hopefully put a few behind us."
The team is peaking at just the right time to turn in a good performance at the Sprints, Pujol said.
"We've been getting a lot faster in the past couple of weeks, so we're very optimistic," Pujol said.
Although the heavyweight team did not medal in the final round of the competition last year, its most impressive performance of the season came in the morning heat, as the rowers knocked off the number one-seeded Brown University.
The lightweight team also had a successful run at Sprints last spring, placing fourth overall.
Henson said that the team hopes to take the top spot on Sunday.
"It's going to be pretty close between those top four or five teams and we're definitely in the mix for that first place spot," he said.
The Crimson historically holds the highest number of victories in both divisions of the men's Eastern Sprints Championship. Harvard has placed first in the heavyweight division 26 times, followed by Yale with six Championships and Brown with five. In the men's lightweight category, Harvard has finished on top 24 times, followed by the Tigers with 15 first place finishes and Cornell University with eight.
In 1974, the Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges began hosting Women's Eastern Sprints as the association's annual championship. The league includes many of the same schools as the men's league, such as the eight Ivy League universities as well as several other schools in the mid-Atlantic region.
According to captain Emily Dreissigacker '11, the women's team hopes to improve from its inconsistent performance at the 2010 Eastern Sprints Championship.
"Last year, we had mixed results," she said. "Our first boat did really well it came in fourth, which is the best that Dartmouth has done in recent history. Our other boats, however, didn't do as well."
Dreissigacker added that the team has experienced some inconsistency this spring but has improved over the course of the season and hopes to finish strong.
The top seven teams in each category at the men's competition will advance to the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship, held in Camden, N.J., June 1-4. The top three to four teams from the women's racing event typically continue onto the NCAA National Championship.
