Rowing Teams Finish Season at Eastern Sprints

With their regular seasons finished, the three Columbia rowing teams will compete at the Eastern Sprints-the heavyweight and lightweight teams at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Mass. and the women at Cooper River in Camden, N.J.

After the men's IRA National Championship regatta on June 1 and the women's NCAA Championships on May 26, the Sprints are the rowing teams' biggest regatta of the season, since the Eastern league is the most competitive in the country.

In the EARC league coaches' poll, released April 27, the Light Blue varsity was ranked 12th and the second varsity 14th. Those rankings are somewhat misleading, however, as both crews recently beat the higher-ranked Boston University on April 29.

The heavyweights look to improve on last year's finish in the Sprints, where no Columbia boat progressed higher than the third-level final.

"We've made far more progress this season than expected, and we are very excited in all our boats about finishing better than we have in recent memory," said sophomore Henry Cooper, who rows four-seat in the varsity eight.

The Light Blue heavyweights have had a promising season so far, bouncing back from a disappointing loss to Princeton and Penn on April 14, to nearly besting Penn on April 21 and finally to trouncing BU by 13 seconds on April 29.

The heavyweight freshmen are currently ranked fifth in the league, behind Harvard, Brown, Princeton, and Northeastern, which is a significant improvement over last year's freshman class, which finished last at the Sprints and IRAs. Its 13-1 regular season finish-which included wins over Yale and Navy, as well as the Penn freshmen, who won the 2006 Sprints-is one of the best in the program's history.

Freshman Will Howe credits his boat's performance to its coach, Dan Perkins, who is in his first season with the Lions. "He whipped us all into shape," Howe said. "We did a lot of hard work in the winter, and boat cohesion has really started to show in the spring. Race results have shown we're a boat to be reckoned with at Sprints."

The varsity lightweight eight goes into Sprints ranked eighth in the league, but as the Lions are separated from the number-one-ranked Cornell boat by only 2.4 seconds, they still have a good chance to duplicate or best last year's fifth-place finish.

The Columbia lightweights have had an uneven season, recording losses to Princeton, Navy, and Rutgers in the varsity boat, battling illness, and changing lineups every week. But some of their best performances have come from losses, as with their near-upset of Yale at the Dodge Cup Regatta on April 14, where they lost by only 1.5 seconds.

For the freshman lightweights, it will be a challenge to the bronze-medal finish they have earned for the past two years at the Sprints, as they are currently ranked fifth, behind dominant Princeton and Navy squads.

Columbia's women will look to improve on their first-place finish in the Petite final. The varsity eight, which is coming off a win over the University of Rhode Island on April 29 and Cornell on April 21, goes into Sprints ranked 11th in the league.

The women's novice eight struggled a bit this season, besting UMass and Northeastern but recording losses to top-ranked Yale and Brown. They are currently ranked 13th in the coaches' poll.