Radcliffe First Varsity Upsets No. 4 Princeton at Sprints

The Radcliffe women’s crew had two primary objectives in mind when it travelled to the EAWRC (Eastern Association of Women’s Rowing Colleges) Sprints this weekend on Camden New Jersey’s Cooper River—first, shake up the standings and, second, set themselves up for a bid to NCAAs later this month.

Radcliffe accomplished both.

The team is sitting pretty for an automatic bid to NCAAs, coming away with a fifth place finish overall at EAWRCs.

Now Radcliffe will wait until May 21 for the seedings to be announced for the championship, to be held on Indianapolis’ Eagle Creek Reservoir. Twelve teams nationwide will receive automatic bids, with at least one team representing each of five national regions. Aside from those berths—which will bring two eight-person boats and one four—four at-large bids will be handed to eight-person boats.

The Chick Willing overall points trophy, though—taken this weekend by Princeton—was not what the Black and White were after at EAWRC Sprints. A good setup for NCAAs and a strong race at all levels was more along the lines of what they wanted. Radcliffe Coach Liz O’Leary got that with medaling finishes from the varsity eight and the first novice eight, and with strong results from the second varsity eight.

Radcliffe Heavyweights

The Radcliffe varsity eight came into the weekend ranked No. 8 in the national standings and fourth in the EAWRC coaches’ polls behind Brown, Princeton, and Yale.

With their third place finish on the Cooper, the Black and White varsity head into three weeks of training for NCAAs with Princeton down, Brown and Yale to go.

In the morning heat, the varsity boat came in second—four ticks behind the Yale boat—and was told to relax going into the afternoon final.

“Our goal was to do what it took to get into the final,” senior stroke Margaret Winterkorn-Meikle said. “Coach told us to really focus on relaxing and enjoying the race for the final.”

Relaxing was no problem for the varsity, as the morning heats took care of any nervous energy and the women were able to work on rowing well into the Cooper’s cross-headwind.

They were also able to cut Yale’s margin by two seconds, surpassing a higher-ranked Princeton and remaining within striking distance of Brown.

Yale and Brown jumped out to an early lead off the start, but Radcliffe made a move at the 1,000-meter mark and pulled even with Yale. The Elis, though, had more juice left and turned it on to take the lead for good with 500 meters to go.

“Yale was our target and it helped that we had planned to gauge our race off them,” said Winterkorn-Meikle of the afternoon final, pleased with the fight Radcliffe gave.

The Brown varsity has now won Easterns for five straight years, but the Black and White is still in the hunt for NCAAs, moving up in the rankings by virtue of its bronze at EAWRCs.

The Radcliffe second varsity boat improved the most upon its prior seeding, finishing in fourth place after being tagged with a preliminary ranking of seventh, having lost to BU and Northeastern’s second varsities on May 5 on the Charles.

The Black and White lost a dogfight to BU by 0.2 seconds a week ago for Charles River bragging rights but came back to break out an open-water victory over the Terriers in the morning heats. The same was true against Northeastern in the final, as Radcliffe turned a one-second loss a week ago into a convincing victory by a half length this weekend.

“It was all or nothing in the morning’s heat, and we really had a strong final,” junior stroke Sarah Psutka said, “It was great to rematch the teams we faced last week.”

While the JV boat was 10 seconds off Brown this weekend, it has three weeks to gain speed before NCAAs. But because of the improvements it has made thus far, everyone seems optimistic, and—because of a finish one place out of medal contention this weekend—hungry for more.

The women’s third varsity four found itself on the other end of the upsets this weekend. With a fourth-place finish in the petite finals, the Black and White four came in 10th overall, falling three places from their preliminary ranking of seventh.

It was a tough draw in the morning heats for the Radcliffe four, as it had to overcome top-ranked Cornell and sixth-ranked Yale, and also hold off a startling move by Penn, who was ranked 12th before this weekend.

With a time of 8:36.0, Radcliffe finished a disappointing 4th in its morning heat, 15 seconds away from qualifying for the final.

There were more disappointing suprises at the novice level. Ranked second to Yale in the final poll of the year, the Radcliffe first novice eight beat the fourth-place Elis in the final, but could not fend off the Princeton and Brown boats, which finished first and second respectively. Radcliffe walked away from the final race of the season with a bittersweet bronze.

Likewise for the second novice boat, who won its morning heat, but was then knocked out of medal contention in the afternoon by surprising charges from Northeastern and Virginia—both of whom were ranked lower going into the weekend. The Black and White was ranked third beforehand but couldn’t muster a medal winning performance, coming in fifth.

The heavies are waiting to hear of a probable NCAA bid next Tuesday, and are sitting on more and more speed as the year goes on, with expectatioins to peak at the right time in Indianapolis.

Radcliffe Lightweights

The lightweight competition was an eye-opener for both the Radcliffe eight and four as both came away with bronzes, adhering to the preliminary rankings, but both finished off of where they had hoped timewise.

The Black and White varsity eight found that the third time is not a charm on two counts. For one thing, Radcliffe couldn’t avoid a third straight third-place Easterns finish. For another, the Black and White dropped its rubber match with the defending champion Tigers, whom they beat in mid-April but lost to in their second meeting of the year last weekend.

On Sunday on the Cooper, the Princeton varsity lights took home the victory, coming from behind to beat Wisconson, the top ranked team.

Radcliffe, ranked third, finished with bronze again this year, but would have liked to have been closer than 12 seconds out of first.

In the four, Radcliffe struggled to keep up with Wisconsin—the eventual winner—and Princeton off the start, as the headwind was much stronger down the course. After the start, though, the race seemed to come together for the Black and White and it ended up with a solid third-place finish, but was still 17 seconds behind Princeton.

“The results were definitely a little disapointing,” sophomore bow seat Bonnie Scott said of the bronze. “But the race itself was better than what we had been having.”

The lights hope to maintain the proud tradition of Black and White varsities who have won five IRA National Championships since 1991.

Three weeks of improvement stand between Radcliffe and IRAs, also held on Camden’s sparkling Cooper on May 31 and June 1. Going in as underdogs doesn’t hurt the Black and White, as anything can happen in lightweight rowing.