With the the spring season underway, the Naval Academy dominated Georgetown’s men at a meet last Saturday in Annapolis, sweeping all of four head-to-head races. On the women’s side, the Hoyas managed to win three of the four matchups on the Potomac as they faced George Washington University for the second week in a row.
After the previous weekend’s sloppy rowing conditions at the Knecht Cup Races, the women’s crew team was happy to see pleasant weather on the Potomac the day before Easter for the Class of 1998 Cup race against local rival GWU.
The first race of the day was the varsity-eight, which George Washington won, posting a time of 6:34.07 in the varsity-eight race to Georgetown’s 6:37.31. The three-second split would be the closest any of the races would be for the rest of the day.
After the varsity-eights dried off, the day belonged to Georgetown: The Hoyas would go on to win the final three races, two by considerable margins.
In the varsity-four race, Georgetown cruised to a 10-second win, with a time of 7:36.99. And the Georgetown lightweights outpaced George Washington’s varsity heavyweight team in the varsity-four category by 5.13 seconds, giving the Hoyas their only one-two finish of the day.
The novice-eight race was a two-boat affair and Georgetown claimed first by a five-second margin.
In the final race, the novice-four, Georgetown again claimed first, this time by almost 18 seconds with a time of 7:44.80. The 18-second win was the largest margin of victory on the day and the largest spread for the team this season.
The men’s team did not fare as well, squaring off against an elite Navy squad that had handily defeated the Hoya heavyweights at the George Washington Invitational on April 8.
The Naval Academy won all four head-to-head matches by considerable margins. In the first race of the day, the varsity-eight, Navy recorded a nine-second win with a pace of 6:04.21 on the 2000-meter course. Nine seconds would be the closest the Hoyas would get to the Midshipmen on the day, with Navy only increasing its win margins as the day went on.
In the second varsity-eight race, Navy took the top two spots in the race, with its first-place team finishing nearly 20 seconds faster than Georgetown’s shell, which finished in 6:24.03.
The freshman-four was another 13-second win for the Navy, en route to a sweep of the second freshman-four race where Navy’s two finishers led Georgetown by 15 and eight seconds.
Tomorrow, the lightweight men will row for the Wood Hammond Trophy against Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania in Princeton, N.J., while the heavyweights will have a head-to-head meet with Temple University on the Potomac.
The lightweight women row at Princeton tomorrow while the heavyweights will row on Sunday head-to-head against the Naval Academy in Annapolis.