Radcliffe Lightweights Edged By Princeton

With the Boston weather forcing all other Radcliffe crew squads from racing, captains Erin Barnhart and Jessica Hertz led lightweights to a 2-1 showing at the Windermere Collegiate Crew Classic in Redwood Shores, Calif., hosted by Stanford University. The regatta opened the 2003 season for Radcliffe crew.

Princeton, the four-time defending national champions, narrowly edged Radcliffe 6:44.98 to 6:47.11 in the opening race.

“The race against Princeton was our first 2000-meter piece of the year,” said Barnhart. “We’d only been on the water for a week and a half, but we had some good practices, so we felt confident. It was pretty disappointing.”

Radcliffe came back later in the day and stormed past Stanford. The Black and White bested the Cardinal by 20 seconds.

In the final race on Sunday, the Radcliffe lightweights triumphed over University of California at Davis, posting a time of 6:48.00 to the Aggies’ 7:29.50.

Though the times Radcliffe posted were very similar, the outcomes in each race were not.

“The only difference in the races was the competition,” said junior Avaleigh Milne.

The team, though proud of its performance, felt that had it been dealt a different hand, the results could have been even better.

“Had we raced UC-Davis, then Stanford and then Princeton, in that order, there might have been a different outcome,” Barnhart said. “But we gave it our all in each race.”

Milne agreed. “We worked on what needed to improve after the first race, and put it all together by the last one. We just wish we had it all there in the first one,” she said.

The Radcliffe lightweights were ranked fourth in the US Rowing Collegiate Coaches Preseason Poll behind Princeton, Wisconsin and Stanford. Princeton took away five of the six first-place votes. Radcliffe received the only other vote.

The lightweight team returns to action April 12 at the Villanova Invitational and April 13 at the Knecht Cup, both in Camden, N.J.

The heavyweight and novice races against Northeastern for the Rowlands Cup, originally scheduled for Saturday, have been re-scheduled for May 10 because of unrowable conditions on the Charles River. The river basin by the Harvard bridge was still frozen over when officials had to decide whether or not to proceed with the races this weekend.

The Black and White heavies will open their spring season at home April 5, hosting Brown and Penn on the Charles River.