For an event that crowns three National Champions and five IRA Champions on its final Day, the IRA Regatta saw just two schools sweeping to wins on Sunday, as every title went to a crew of Tigers from Princeton or Bears from Cal.
For the 120th running of the regatta we figured a reference to a song from 1939 would work as a title... the IRA had already been around for 46 years at that point.
To be fair, the three National Champion crews were each the favorites: California in the Varsity Eight and Princeton in the Lightweight Women's Eight--both tabbed to repeat in the Varsity Eight pretty much all year, and backing it up all the way--along with the Princeton Lightweight Men, the Eastern Sprints winners who made the quick trip across Route 1 to Mercer Lake on a roll.
The fact that each of those squads swept their races as a team--and in a year when a lot has been made about parity in men's rowing and just how many fast crews shared the water this weekend on the championship course--was nothing short of remarkable...and also a clear reminder that it does take a team, and a boathouse, full of fast crews to produce the top end speed of a champion.
Even in the close finishes, and there were a few good ones in the lower boats--the light women's four, the light men's 2V, and the heavyweight 3V--Cal and Princeton crews prevailed, and you know a whole boathouse is having a good day when you can call one boat shop in Princeton and talk to most of the day's winning coaches at once.
Varsity 8 National Champions - Cal
One coach called the Cal Varsity Eight's first twenty strokes in the final unbelievably impressive, and the Cal crew did control the ultimate race of the 2023 season from the jump. In an era where big open water wins at the top level of men's rowing just don't happen on Grand Finals anymore, this Cal crew has clearly mastered the way to win in a deep field: being able to get out early, and then always having a response, at speed, to keep the bow ahead.
In the end, Washington pushed Cal hard all the way to the line, making up almost a length since their last meeting at the Pac-12 Championships, chased by a Princeton crew that had their best race of a season against Yale and the rest of the eastern crews to win the bronze--and it was tight, all of it: Cal 5:31.7, Washington 5:32.9, Princeton 5:34.8, Yale 5:36, with Syracuse at 5:38.1 and Northeastern at 5:43.1 rounding out the Grand.
"The varsity had a great start," said head coach Scott Frandsen. "They asserted themselves early, hit all of our moves and calls, put everybody else under pressure and then continued to ease away.
"I told them before the race, that there was going to be a crew that moves back or tries to make statements, but in that third 500 or beginning of the fourth, we're going to have to answer that call and put an end to it. And they did. Washington moved, and we responded in a decisive way that ended the race.
"It's a special group," Frandsen added. "It's such an honor to be guiding this group of athletes. From coxswain to stroke to bow, they're all very, very good, and really calm and composed. Every time that they've been pushed over the last two years they've responded with composure and execution. It's just been such an honor to be a part of that."
Washington Wins Silver
Heading into this IRA weekend, the length or so between Cal and Washington at Pac12 Championships seemed like it might open space for any number of crews from the east to contend for medals, but in the end, Washington rounded into form, narrowed that length down to handful of seats, and won a well-earned silver hot on Cal's heels.
"The guys made a lot of the right decisions in terms of work ethic, commitment, and trust with each other all year, so it wasn't surprising to me that on the last day, they had a very good race," Washington coach Michael Callahan said. "We were gaining speed where we wanted to. We train through a lot of the races and we didn't come off for any of the races on Saturday, so everyone knew that this was the race that they were targeting. They focused on that and had a lot of belief that they were going to have a strong one on the last day."
A year ago, Washington came in after winning the 2021 championship--their 19th--but then collected just one eights medal, a bronze in the 3V, and was just off the podium in fourth with both the 1V and 2V.
"Last year, we had to have a hard look at ourselves and what we're doing," said Callahan. "We got an amazing leadership from Jack Walkey and Logan Ullrich and Pablo Matan that set the right tone.
"We really used the Bob Moch MIB 'mind in boat' mantra," said Callahan, referring to the coxswain of the legendary 1936 UW "Boys in the Boat" crew. "There's a lot of distractions in college, and in rowing, and in this world with everything else going on. So this whole year, we said let's stay focused on the main thing, and if we do that we're going to be successful. I think we're super proud of how they went about it. They made so many good decisions on how to go about being successful, and we though we didn't get the gold medal, that made it a successful season for us.
"We changed our technical focus a little bit this year," Callahan also noted. "And then at the very end, we tried to get the timing in the boat even better on the front end. I think that helped us get better peak speed and also helped us be more efficient through the middle thousand. The guys felt that, too, and it was really fun for them to feel the boat picking up speed and a little bit easier for them to keep the boat at top speed."
"We saw a lot of depth, especially the varsity eights this year across men's rowing," said Callahan, "and frankly, I felt that way about the women's eights after all their regattas and NCAAs. I saw a lot of depth and people and competing at a high level, and it's great. It's really wonderful to see across the board. It makes it interesting and that's what we want. We want it to be come down the last day, the last race, and have a lot of people excited about men's rowing."
Princeton Captures Bronze
Princeton's eight put their marker down in the third 500 to move to third and win their first IRA medal since 2016. After picking up the win in the semi against the very fine Yale crew that kept finding ways to get in front of the Tigers before this weekend, Princeton had the Bulldog's number on the final two days of the season--earning them a Tiger medal behind Cal and Washington.
"I never imagined at the start of the year that that's where those guys would be," said head coach Greg Hughes. "I'm just really happy for them and proud of them. It was an awesome race and I was also happy with the way that the conditions lined up, so we really saw what everybody had today. Yesterday, that was a different deal. In survival conditions, okay, fine, we were able to do something that we hadn't done before against Yale, but it didn't feel real. Today felt real, and they had their best race of the year and it was phenomenal.
"The main theme that we had for the season as a team was consistency. And it wasn't just to continue to do the same thing again, and again, it was to consistently get a little bit better every week, which is really hard to do. It's easy to make some some gains one week out of four or out of six. But to be able to do it on a steady, consistent basis is really hard when you have nine people in a boat with academic lives and all that stuff. But this crew did a really awesome job with that.
"They kept chipping away, and they never gave up. And I think that's what you saw this weekend: finally getting three weeks to continue improving, and they were able to put it together today."
Ten Eyck Championship - Cal
For all of Cal's wins in the Varsity eight, and the Bears are now tied with Washington at 19 titles over the years, the Bears have only captured the Ten Eyck Trophy three times. In their best years during the Ten Eyck era, which started in 1952, Cal has won the Varsity 12 times, often along with the 2V or Freshmen, but another team would win the trophy for team depth.
That was not the case this year: Cal's full team won every final, and it all started with the four's win on Saturday, so the only time Cal's bows were not in first all weekend was the 3V taking second in their semi--a hiccup that the 3V set right on Sunday when it counted to get the sweep rolling with the eights.
For Frandsen and his Bears, winning as a team meant everything:
"We've been trying to build the strongest, deepest team in the US and in the world," he said. "To have all of the crews go out and win today is really special, and it's a great show of depth for the whole team. The three and a half eights that were able to be here and win, and then also the two and a half eights back in Berkeley who were just as much of a part of this as everybody else.
"That team dynamic, that building of depth from the fall and through the winter, that all played a huge role in how competitive we were able to be here today.
"The four started it yesterday," Frandsen noted, "and then the 3V, they just went for it and they were able to take it out in front and hold on. Then when it got really hard in the last 250, they really dug in and held on for the win. That just set the tone for the day, so I'm really, really proud of those guys.
"It all has an impact," he said, remembering that, "two minutes before I supposed to meet with the varsity before they launched, the 3V race was finishing. So the last thing we all did before we met to talk about what the varsity was going to do was watch the 3V win. That has to have an impact. My message after that, of course, was okay, that was emotional, let's calm it down and focus in on what we're doing. But it has to have a bolstering effect, seeing that when it gets hard, we as a team can hold on."
In the current format of the IRA--three varsity eights and the four--only one other team has run the table by taking all four wins like Cal did this year. That was Washington, who last did it in 2015, then in the midst of a title and Ten Eyck streak of their own.
Year of the Tiger
Princeton swept all the lightweight races today, winning their ninth Light Men's championship and their eighth Light Women's title. When you add to that the third place finish by the Tiger's Heavyweight Eight today, and the Open Women's third place in the V8 and as a team a week ago at NCAAs, it really has been a banner year for the crews from Carnegie.
LWT Men's National Champions - Princeton
The dominance of the Princeton Light Men, in sweeping the 1V and 2V races at the IRA after winning both at Sprints as well along with the Jope Cup, was all the more remarkable for coming at the end of a lightweight season that started out full of what could be called contradictory results--a stretch of weeks, and polls, where it seemed like nearly every crew in the league had at least one win or margin that put them at or near the front of the pack.
The topsy-turvy nature of the lightweights' season ran all the way through to the tight HYP race in Boston just before Sprints, a race that was all even until a double crab by Harvard and a late move by Princeton. Yet the Tigers emerged from all of that to win both the Sprints and the IRAs by figuring out a way to do something that is pretty difficult in the lightweight league: constantly stay out in frontĀ of a bunch of crews equally capable of winning on their best day.
"They've done some great stuff the last few weeks," said head coach Marty Crotty, who called some of their IRA Camp work electric when we spoke after the heats on Friday, "and I just wanted them to be able to go out there and do it one more time today.
"They got off to a pretty crooked start that cost seats [eds. which you can see on the video] but Adam Casler, the coxswain, did a good job of not panicking and they just just stayed poised and got into a good rhythm that they could push off when they wanted to.
"In that third 500, they were really on the front end, really in front of it. The catches were just really clean, and the blades weren't getting run over. Everybody was on the front of the puddle and, at the release, the boat was just running really well. I knew that they had yet to really kick into that final gear. If you're ahead, and you haven't really pulled that last lever yet? It is pretty special."
That 'last lever' was the key to Princeton's winning down the home stretch of the season, and Crotty credits the stroke of his 2V, Eoin Gaffney, for making the call one day at practice:
"We scrimmage on Wednesdays, and we were doing a finishing 1000, practicing the last 1000 of the race, and it was the day where the 2V beat the varsity. And I came over to the boat, to say good job, and Gaffney said something like, 'No, that wasn't good enough. We need to go faster between 500 and 250 [to go].' He meant that it does no good to hit your top speed with five strokes to go. You need to hit your top speed with 200 meters to go, so the rest of the year we practiced just that: 550 to go, wind it up, from 500 to 250 hit your top speed, then with 250 to go, hang on for dear life. "Credit to Eoin for making that call a month ago and we've really worked on that. That second to last 250 is key for us. Both boats did a really good job with that today."
And that 2V? Which was a spark for Princeton's whole lightweight program in the run-up to Sprints as row2k reported a few weeks ago? How that crew does really matters to Crotty's whole team, right up to the 1V:
When he went down to the dock to catch the varsity after their win, the first question from the 1V was about the 2V.
"The bow man turned around and instead of 'Hey, we did it' he says, 'Did the 2V win?' The 1V was out on their warm up and saw the 2V go by at the 800 meter mark down four seats. And they were more concerned with them: they were like, don't tell us the 2V did not win. Then when I told them the 2V had come back and they won by a length, the guys celebrated all over again on the dock."
Just behind Princeton this year was Harvard and, to be fair, the Crimson went out fast, even with Princeton or a bit ahead for parts of both races, which was a tremendous return to form for a team that did not even qualify for the IRA a year ago.
"We started the year with the explicit goal to restore the competitive standing of Harvard lightweight rowing," said head coach Billy Boyce, "and that came from some pretty honest conversations where we all agreed the program had fallen to an unacceptable place.
"That led to conversations about what needed to change, what was not working and what needed to be different, and that ended up being nearly everything about the program, but it started with being honest with ourselves and making it clear that that was not the team we want to be.
"If you'd asked any of us at the start of the year, we would have said that a podium finish would be would be a dream just compared to where we had been. And I think any of us would have said a medal would be a tremendous success. It is it's very hard to win a medal in any event at the IRA, in any year. But to have come so far, and to really be in the position where we were contending for gold. We know it's a great result, but nobody's feeling particularly happy about it right now.
"It'll sink in that's a great result. But right now, it's a hard one," said Boyce, who nonetheless could see how far his team had come, and how rewarding the process had been.
"I'd say it was one of the one of the most fun years coaching in a while," Boyce reflected, "because we we came in with a really ambitious and clear plan. We just stuck to it and, for the most part, it was working. That was really rewarding."
LWT Women's National Champions - Princeton
The Princeton Lightweight have owned the eight and the national title for three years now after another open water win--the biggest margin across any of the finals on Sunday--but this year they completed a sweep of the three Light Women's events that they have been working towards throughout the eight's streak.
In 2021, they captured just the eight, then added the double in 2022--part of a now two year unbeaten streak by the duo of Amelia Boehle and Kasey Shashaty--and then this year the four earned a gritty win over the top athletes from MIT to finish the set.
"We've been talking about for three years," said head coach Paul Rassam, "and I'm especially happy for the four because we came close last year, but the four didn't get it, and it's tough to be that boat. I think the way the four won it today was a super gutsy race.
"The big story in the four is we had two athletes in there who were injured the whole season, and then came into the stern pair. That was their only race for the whole season. So it was it was just huge for them, both on the perseverance level, but also when you go to national championship and you haven't race once, it's pretty nerve racking. And you're the stern pair. So the way they did it from wire to wire was super gutsy. MIT's four is really strong, we knew that from last year so to be able to hold them off? Hats off to the four."
Team points aside, it is the V8 that determines the champions at the IRA, and the Princeton varsity took care of business on a level above the tight racing for medals in their wake--and their challenges this weekend were internal according to Rassam.
"After the heat, we weren't happy with the second 500, so we did do some things differently in the second 500," he said, about how the crew wanted to do a better job of building off the strongest card in their hand, the start.
"We know we're fast out the blocks, but in the heat we weren't super great in the second 500. So today, you saw our stroke, Sarah Fry, break [race announcer] Dave Vogel's stroke watch today, going off at 52. They just pinned their ears back and went, and they had a lot of belief in their ability to back it up down the course.
"They're not an arrogant boat," Rassam noted. "They're still super nervous like any other crew out there, but they just channel it really well."
Stanford was the crew to grab the silver today, with Georgetown repeating their bronze medal from a year ago in a tight battle for the rest of the medals that was just as exciting as Princeton's margin was impressive.
For Stanford, a program with a rich history of nine titles, silver was a welcome sight just three seasons removed from being cut and then reinstated with a new coach.
"It's been about getting the whole team rebuilt again," said head coach Madison Keaty about the past few seasons. Keaty took over the team when Stanford's alums successfully pressured the school to reverse its decision.
"It was still a small group this year," Keaty said, "But I'm proud of the way that they handled themselves all year, through the ups and downs, and were able to come here this weekend and race gutsy for a medal."
Stanford's run to the podium started a month ago, when they came east at the start of May as the #4 team, and got a win over then #2 BU in Boston.
"Coming off of the BU race, they were feeling like that was a good spot to be, but they still had things that they wanted to work on. Then over the course of the four weeks that we had before IRAs, they were the epitome of continual progress, week by week. They were really intentional in coming together more as a crew, and they were able to come into this weekend feeling ready to go and like they could put their best foot forward.
"Obviously, this is not ultimately a result that we're completely satisfied with," said Keaty, "but to still move the needle forward, for team and the program, in the direction we want to go was pretty awesome."
Clayton Chapman Award - Pennsylvania
The Chapman Award goes to the team with the largest Ten Eyck points improvement from the previous year, and this year Penn won it, just nine months after new Head Coach Al Monte arrived in October to lead the program.
"I am proud of the work and effort these guys have put in this year to get to this point," said Monte, "and this award is the physical representation of that.
"While our team on the whole is young, they are hungry. I'm excited to see what this group can achieve this summer on their own and to get back to work in September."
Penn raced into the AB Semis across the board, finishing 12th in the 1V, 11th in the 2V and 9th in the 3V.
The Growth of the IRA, and Rowing
For a few reasons, this was the biggest IRA, and it hit that apogee thanks in part to the new D3 2V event, but also do to increase in the number of schools joining the IRA as members and racing in the fours event. For a sport that has seen programs cut in the very recent past, that growth is welcome and IRA commissioner Gary Caldwell sees the IRA, as an event that promotes the sport, as having a role in that growth.
"We're 20 to 25% bigger than we were prior to COVID," said Caldwell. "We added 56 people last year, just in the D3 eights, and we added another seven eights with the 2V event this year.
"The fours event has grown because we have significant growth in the Division 1 membership, too. You have schools like Iona, Mass Maritime, Stetson, and others. Schools that were not traditionally members have joined. That division that that varsity four event had 31 crews this year. So we're up 20% even from last year and last year we already the first wave of growth with adding the D3 Eight.
"The fours event was one of the driving forces. The Stewards have have all signed on that having the notion that numbers shouldn't be the gateway to success. Having numbers in your whatever you designate your championship event should, so the Varsity Eight, but it's not like a conference championship, where you empty the boathouse and bring everybody.
"I suggested way back that if you're trying to expand the people who attend the championship, for people on the outside looking in, you really need to give them a glimpse of what it's like. There's also the incentive that if they come here and do well in a small boat, then one year they bring a small boat and maybe the next year they qualify in an eight."
This year, LaSalle was among the schools which had followed that path: after a few years of participating via the four, LaSalle raced two eight from their program, which has been picking up speed, and put their Varsity Eight in the C Level final.
Notes From the Course
Down to Smidges - that's how tight the racing looked to announcer Fred Schoch at one point this year, if, he said, "you know what a smidge is." After this weekend, we sure do: the smidges abounded!
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