After a somewhat predictable set of races the previous week, this weekend’s racing was anything but, forcing massive movement on both men’s and women’s poll. With midweek racing to go along with some tasty dual racing, this week’s preview is not one to miss.
Midweek Racing Review
Out of the ordinary, still #1 Harvard attempted to bounce back from their first loss of the season before classes on Wednesday against local rivals #8 Northeastern. However, this very nearly didn’t go to plan. For most of the race it was the Huskies with a slender lead but a late charge from the Crimson allowed them to save their blushes with a 2.5 second win.
Coaches’ Polls
The top of the men’s polls was all shaken up as Princeton rose to the top following their upset win over Harvard, and Washington’s victory in the dual allowed them to stay rise to number two. Losers of the weekend, California and Harvard both slipped two spots to third and fourth respectively.
Further down La Salle were rewarded for their win at the Kerr Cup and Holy Cross’ strong performance on home water allowed them to rise to #20.
On the women’s side the biggest story in the polls were Tennessee who rose a massive ten positions to place themselves into the top five for the coming weekend forcing much of the remainder to slide down in adjustment. Strong showings from Yale, Michigan and Rutgers allowed them to stay in the same place, to the detriment of Brown, Syracuse and Ohio State who each lost two places to compensate.
Week Six Preview
The highlight of week six come in Austin, Texas as #1 Stanford will be hosted by #2 Texas at the Longhorn invitational. They will be joined by #12 Virginia and #14 Ohio State. In their preparatory press conference, all four coaches expressed excitement at the level of racing this weekend, with coach Byrnes of Stanford describing it as a “phenomenal opportunity racing three really fast teams”.
Elsewhere another major invitational is taking place in Raleigh, North Carolina headlined by the hottest property in rowing, the #5 Tennessee volunteers, they will be forced to defend their ranking against top competition, especially #10 Syracuse and #11 Penn who had both also been tipped as rising programs in recent years.
On the duals front it is comparatively far quieter, but will still contain the famous grudge match #6 Yale and #20 Harvard, as well as other Ivy battles where #19 Columbia host #3 Princeton and others.
On the men’s side it’s a weekend of three-wide racing. #1 Princeton and #5 Yale travel to Ithica, New York to race against #14 Cornell in what is the second of Princeton’s high-class triple header to end the regular season.
Meanwhile, #3 Harvard will be looking to bounce back to some tough racing this week and will travel with #9 Penn to race on the home water of the #11 Navy Midshipmen.
The only particularly notable invitational for the men will be in Vermont as #10 Dartmouth will host #7 Syracuse, #13 Boston University, #15 Wisconsin and #19 Georgetown at the Lake Morey Invitational.
With such great racing across the country as we draw towards the business end of the season, this weekend will have plenty for us to focus on in next week’s episode of The End of the Island podcast!
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