LIGHTING THE WAY: The Princeton University men’s lightweight rowing varsity eight pulling hard in a race this spring. Last Saturday, the Tiger top boat fell to Harvard but defeated Yale in the annual HYP regatta which was held on the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. Princeton is next in action when it competes in the Eastern Sprints on May 17 in Worcester, Mass. (Photo by Row2K/Ed Hewitt, provided courtesy of Princeton Athletics)

By Bill Alden

While the Princeton University men’s lightweight rowing team wrapped up regular season racing last weekend, it still has plenty of time to improve as it heads into championship competition.

“It is exciting, we have a lot in front of us,” said Princeton first year head coach Matt Smith, whose No. 5 varsity eight crew fell to No. 1 Harvard but defeated No. 4 Yale in the annual HYP regatta last Saturday on the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass.

“It his really interesting because when I started looking at the calendar, I saw that we are going to finish our race against Harvard and Yale and that will have been six weeks but we still have five weeks to go. It is not like we finish this and Sprints is next weekend and national championship is the next week. We have a good amount of time to continue to make good, positive changes.”

Even though the crew didn’t get on the water unto March 7 due to the harsh winter that hit the area, the Tiger top boat got off to a positive start as they defeated Navy.

“Our first race was March 21, where the other teams in the boathouse had another week,” said Smith. “You could see it in the guys, hey we are racing soon and they took that. It is early season, we are going to rely on our fitness and just be a team. The boats might not be in their perfect lineups. We trained hard over winter. We are moving well so let’s go out and get it done. The guys did great. We lucked out and got amazing weather.”

A week later, the Tiger varsity eight built on the opener as it defeated Columbia and Dartmouth at Overpeck Park in Leona, N.J.

“The guys are excited, they had a very good winter training block,” said Smith. “We saw some good improvement from top to bottom on the whole team. That made the guys excited to get out there and race, take it out and see how it goes.”

After defeating Cornell on April 11, Princeton’s top boat tasted defeat for the first time this spring when it lost to Penn on April 18 in the race for the Wood-Hammond Trophy.

“The first eight didn’t get a result against Penn, that was representative of who we were,” said Smith. “It was a bad race from us. They came off the water and they were all like, here are a couple of things that we didn’t execute as well as we should have. It is a bummer because it is a missed opportunity. They grew from it and learned from it.”

Last weekend at the HYP regatta, the Tigers executed well but couldn’t overcome Harvard. The Crimson posted a winning time of 5:36.272 over the 2,000-meter course on the Charles River with Princeton coming in at 5:39.499 and Yale taking third in 5:43.858.

“This week we moved some bodies around, just trying different things,” said Smith. “Harvard is very good. They are very well-coached rowing team. They are very strong and fit as we have seen the past two years. There is a reason they won the national championship the past two years. There is a reason why they have put up big margins against everybody this spring.”

Over the course of the spring, Smith has been impressed with the level of competition the Tigers have encountered.

“What I assessed over the years is that there would be two or three good teams in the league and then a bit of a gap,” said Smith. “You look at the league now and from top to bottom and everybody is getting well coached. Everybody is physically fit, everybody is rowing well. It is great for the sport.”

Senior captains Reuben Cook and Liam Dooley have been making a great impact for Princeton this season.

“Reuben is stroking the varsity and Liam is in the 2V, those guys as seniors have done a really good job of elevating the whole team,” said Smith. “That is really, really awesome. Some of the younger guys that are first-years and second years have been awesome individuals. Ed Galer and George Dolce are in the five and six seats of the varsity eight and are both first years. They have been doing a great job as young guys in there, pushing hard and doing really good stuff.”

The second varsity eight also features some young guys doing a great job.

“They lost a heartbreaker this weekend but they had been running an undefeated season,” said Smith. “The two guys on either end of the boat, Ivo Monaghan and Charles Huckel at stern and Sebastian Lyne and Benjamin Peron at bow, are all freshmen. We have a freshman cox in Matteus Rueca and then you have Liam in there as the senior. There are really, really good vibes.”

In taking the helm of the program, Smith has urged his rowers to stay in the moment.

“It has been good, there has definitely some learning I have done,” said Smith, who has succeeded longtime head coach Marty Crotty. “The fundamentals that I tell the guys every week and everyday is be a good teammate and let’s make all of our boats go fast. We are all going to have good days and bad days. It is enjoy this process and don’t get fixated on one result or one piece. Everybody on the team has done a good job with that. It is let’s learn and grow from our wins and losses.”

With the Tigers next in action when they race in the Eastern Sprints on May 17 in Worcester, Mass., Smith is looking for his rowers to make the most of the three-week hiatus from competition.

“As I told the guys, we are entering championship season in rowing but we are all entering championship season in the classroom,” said Smith. “They are done with classes now and they will start to enter exams. They are in the reading period but they are all busy. They have different presentations, it is not like this is an easy week. The seniors might have a thesis defense due. The goal is ‘let’s have a good solid training block here.’ If we look at where we were three weeks ago and what was our fitness and how were we rowing and where we are now, let’s see if we can make another jump in the next three weeks.”

Smith is confident that his rowers will make that jump. “We have made some really good changes and we have done some good stuff over the last five weeks,” said Smith, whose team will be competing in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championships from May 29-31 in Sacramento, Calif. “We are nowhere near finished products and we should feel that way. We want to continue to get fit, we want to continue to make the boats row really well and see if we can can get four eights in the top three in the events.”