Women win second straight title
By: Justin Feil
Heather Smith elected not to mention anything about Princeton University’s streak before her women’s lightweight crew took to the water in Sunday’s Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship grand final.
For 13 prior seasons, at least one Tiger team had claimed a national title. Not in 2000, however, until Smith’s crew, in its third year of existence, won did Princeton have a 14th year in a row.
“I don’t think any of my athletes were aware of that,” the third-year head coach said after the women’s lightweight team won its second consecutive title. “They put enough pressure on themselves. Their commitment is strong enough to the team and to Princeton. They would drive themselves enough without knowing that.”
And even though Princeton went into Sunday’s championship race as the favorite, it wasn’t a given for the Tigers. Everything was tougher this season for Princeton, which did not lose a race last year.
“Absolutely it was tougher,” Smith said. “Some of it has to do with the inexperience and injuries we had. It made the victory sweeter, if that’s possible. It was a much scrappier season. There was a lot more fighting and less outright dominance. I hope in the future to see more of that. Not that I don’t want us to improve or continue to win, but I want to see other school’s programs improve as well.”
Princeton was defeated by Wisconsin early in the season, a loss that Smith said was not devastating, but may have been motivational. In Sunday’s final, the Tigers got off to a quick start and led from start to finish over second-place Villanova and third-place Wisconsin.
“It was great racing. I was very proud of all the rowers and coxswains,” Smith said. “Our performance this spring was, as we anticipated, rocky at times early in season. But it culminated with speed at end of season when it matters most. We had injuries early in the year and this year’s team is young. We had several sophomores, some juniors and not many seniors. We graduated five seniors last year.
“In addition to having great rowers in the eight that won, we had more depth this year. It made it tough for me this year to pick who would be in the boat. I give a lot of praise not only to those rowers and coxswains who were in final eight, but the others who were on the team too. That is a change from previous years. We had a few more rowers than usual. I think it will continue to grow. I would hope we’d be able to load up two eights and a four next year.”
But Smith and Princeton will also lose a key ingredient in the program’s early success, Lisa Cakmak. The senior has been a coxswain for four years. She started out at Princeton with the open women’s crew, but when lightweight became an official varsity sport as a sophomore, she hopped aboard because there were opportunities to contribute immediately. Cakmak graduates a two-time national champion.
“It was definitely a goal from day one,” said the Princeton resident of winning this year’s title. “We had a pretty young team this year. We knew we’d have a steep learning curve. Coming into the race, we knew we could win it. If we lost, we knew it’d be a mistake of our own.
“Winning last year was great. Winning this year was great. We went about it different ways. It’s an indescribable feeling.”
Last year, it was a steady and consistent group of eight that carried Princeton to its first title in program history. This year, there were changes all season in the line-up, including one after the Eastern Sprints just two weeks before the national championship. But in the end, Princeton took care of the little things to win the big one and Cakmak played a big part of that as one of the lone returnees to an inexperienced boat.
“It didn’t make it tougher, but it made my job a little more important,” she said. “When you have a coxswain who has been in boat since the day the program existed, when I had a good day, the boat had good day. When I had a bad day, the boat had a bad day.”
Smith had prepared the team the for the possibility that someone could catch them on a bad day. But on the whole, there were more good days for PU.
“Heather, our coach, is really good. She said before we started, ‘I don’t think it’s going to be an undefeated season,’” Cakmak remembered. “We graduated five people. Lineups weren’t set until the week before the championship. We had injuries and illnesses. That one loss we had a bad race, but the race wasn’t a total loss.”
Princeton regrouped and was able to come back and win the national title. The goal will be the same next season, though there will be schools like Wisconsin and Brown, whom Smith noted have improved in leaps and bounds. And the Tigers will have more experience returning as well.
“I think they’ll be good again next year,” said Cakmak, who will spend the summer traveling the world beginning in Cypress and Turkey this week. “Everyone on team, from sophomores to seniors has come so far. We knew the learning curve would be steep. They’re going to be really incredible. There are good rowers returning from the first boat and we have some good novices coming up.”
“I’m sure we will be the target,” Smith said. “But our mantra will be take nothing for granted. Very early in the year, we set out our goal recognizing that it was going to be a challenging goal to meet. It doesn’t come easily.”
And it doesn’t come without a strong support group. Though the weight of Princeton University’s streak was on the line, the women’s lightweight team knew that later on Sunday the men’s heavyweight and lightweight boats also had chances for titles. The men’s lightweight was nosed out to finish second while the heavyweights finished third. In the Tigers’ tight rowing community, everyone was happy to celebrate a national title, and Smith was happy to share credit.
“I would certainly like to mention that some of our success is due to the outstanding resources we have at Princeton,” she said. “I’ve been able to use the experience and knowledge of the other coaches and then having the technical support of Brad Woodrick, our boatwright, was important. They were a big help.”
As was the women’s lightweight crew team to Princeton University’s athletics in sustaining its national championship winning streak.