Boat Titles

TigerBlog definitely shortchanged the rowing teams in yesterday's entry. 

He didn't mean to do so. It was more a product of circumstance. 

He was at the Princeton-Penn State men's lacrosse NCAA tournament game, which was getting started not that long after the racing on Lake Quigsigamond was reaching its finals. He tried to write up as much as he could beforehand, and then he tacked on the rowing results after the lacrosse game.

He wanted to mention what the rowers accomplished, but he didn't really have time to dive in, as it were. So today he's back with some more. 

He did follow the results on row2k.com, which is a wild site. If you ever want to know anything at all about racing, that's the place to go.

The Princeton open women continued their unbeaten season by taking the Ivy League championship. If you're keeping track, that's eight times in the 10 years of the Ivy League's event that Princeton won the first varsity 8 race, including each of the last six.

The Ivy League champion for women's open rowing used to go to the winner of the first varsity 8 race at Eastern Sprints, until the NCAA began awarding automatic bids to conference winners. As such, the Ivy League event was born, and the automatic NCAA bid goes to the team that wins the overall points standings.

In this case, that was also Princeton, who edged Yale 85-84 in the final scoring. Princeton got 32 points for winning the first varsity after being seven points behind the Bulldogs before that. The difference between Princeton's first place and Yale's third? Eight points. 

Princeton's open women will now compete at the NCAA championships on the Cooper River in Pennsauken May 26-28. The NCAA's first women's rowing championship was in 1997, and there has never been a year when Princeton has not qualified. 

Since 2013, the national championship has gone to one of four schools: Texas, Washington, Cal and Ohio State. Texas has won the last two (team and first varsity 8), but the Tigers defeated the Longhorns back in April. It should be a great regatta. 

The Ivy women's championships were held at the same site as the men's Eastern Sprints Sunday, which meant that the Tiger lightweight and heavyweight men were competing for Ivy championships as well. The lightweight women, the two-time defending national champ, already won their own Eastern Sprints earlier this season.

The men's lightweights are the No. 1 team in the country, and they certainly looked the part Sunday, winning their own Ivy title. Princeton won both the first varsity 8 and second varsity 8 races, something the program had only done twice before, in 2003 and 2010. 

The Tigers also won the Jope Cup for the overall points total, something that the lightweights have now done 16 times. 

The heavyweight men's first varsity 8 race was the final one on a long day of racing. For the first time since 2016, the Princeton boat finished in the top two, falling to heavily favored Yale by a second. The second varsity 8 also won silver, giving Princeton a very strong showing, and some serious momentum heading into the IRA national championships.

That meet will be held June 2-4 in West Windsor. The women's lightweights will be seeking that third straight title. Obviously the two men's teams will be right in the mix.

It was a great day of racing Sunday, that's for sure. TB is sorry he only threw a few lines in yesterday. 

By the way, as he writes this, he's on the men's lacrosse bus back from Penn State, after the excruciating 13-12 loss. It's a harsh way for a season to end, and even after staying overnight in State College, it was hard for everyone who got on the bus to swallow that there were no more practices or games for this group.

As head coach Matt Madalon said to the team after, there are 17 teams in the tournament and only one gets to end the season in a pile. 

Multiply that by every team in every sport, and you're left with one really overriding thought: If it's not about the journey, then you're doing it wrong.