 (Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction) caption: |
When Devan Darby joined the Princeton University women's crew program as a walk-on in 2002, she was merely looking to try something new.
"I always wanted to row but my high school didn't have it," said Darby, a native of Virginia Beach, Va., who competed in softball, soccer, swimming, and cross country during her high school years.
"I thought it would be great fun. When I was a freshman at Princeton I saw these signs around campus about joining the crew team and how you could go backwards really, really fast."
Once she took up rowing, Darby moved up the sport's ladder really, really fast. She made Princeton's top open boat by her sophomore season. This past spring, she was the team's captain and helped lead the boat to an undefeated season and the NCAA title.
Both of her parents rowed for the U.S. national team but Gevvie Stone resisted the pull of the family pastime for years.
In her first two years of high school at the Winsor School in Boston, Stone's main sport was lacrosse. But realizing that she wasn't on track to be a lacrosse star at the college level, Stone took to the water for the Winsor crew program.
It didn't take long for Stone to show that rowing greatness was in her genes as she helped the Winsor women's varsity four with a coxswain to high national titles as a junior and a senior.
Heading into last weekend, the Princeton Post 218 American Legion baseball team found itself in a dogfight as it looked to qualify for postseason play.
After a stirring 7-3 win over North Trenton Post 458 last Thursday, Princeton stood at 10-8 with four games to play as the regular season of Mercer County American Legion League (MCALL) hit the homestretch.
Post 218 needed to win all four of its remaining games to pass Bordentown Post 26 (13-9) for the fifth and final spot in the state Legion playoffs. Victories in three of the four games would land Princeton in a playoff with Post 26 for the playoff berth.
With the Princeton-Cranbury Babe Ruth 14-year-old all-star team leading Hightstown-East Windsor 6-1 going into the final inning last Thursday in District 1 play, P-C catcher Tom Hrabchak wasn't satisfied.
Holding court in a pre-inning huddle, Hrabchak exhorted his teammates to not let up, leading them in a chant of "runs, runs" as the players readied themselves to take their turn at bat. P-C, though, didn't need any more runs as its pitching shut the door on Hightstown-East Windsor with the 6-1 score holding up as the final margin.