Orange, Big Red Look Headed for a Sprints Showdown Again

When the Orange Varsity withstood a crab in the sprint and held off Cornell to regain the Goes Trophy, April 16 at Ithaca, both they and the Big Red knew they were likely to battle again, and soon. Now it appears their next face-off will be this Sunday morning at the Eastern Sprints in Worcester.

SU Coach Dave Reischman briefs Orange Varsity and JV before Goes Cup Races at Cornell, April 16



The latest EARC Seeding Poll has SU at #6 and the Big Red at #7. That would put both in the heat with top-seeded Harvard, #12 Georgetown and #13 Penn. The final seedings are due out this week.

Brown jumped over the Orange to #5 last week, losing by a couple of seconds to three- seed Princeton. All the EARC crews were idle this weekend, getting set for the Sprints.

The Orange crews have not raced since April 22, when Boston University edged the varsity eight by less than two seconds in rough conditions at Syracuse. The Big Red raced at Princeton the next day, trailing the Tigers by about a length.

Other Polls

Interestingly enough, without taking a stroke in competition, the Orange pulled even with Brown at #7 in the US Rowing/Coaches Poll two weeks ago, then moved into the seven spot alone this past week. Cornell now checks in at #9 with Washington up top, followed by California and Harvard.

The cMax Rankings also have Syracuse at #7, four-tenths of a second ahead of Brown and 2.1 ahead of 11th- ranked Cornell.

All of which boils down to what SU Basketball Coach Jim Boeheim might call “talk show talk,” if there were talk shows that focused on crew.

A year ago it looked as if all SU had to do to make the Grand Final was beat Northeastern. The Orange did that, but 12-seed Dartmouth came seemingly out of nowhere to win the heat and with Brown hanging on for second, SU wound up in the Petites – where they were edged by…Cornell. That SU varsity wound up in the Grand Final at the IRA.

JV, Frosh seedings

If the seeds hold, the Orange JV will line up as the seven seed, against #1 Harvard, #6 BU, #12 George Washington and #13 Columbia.

The SU freshman eight is seeded tenth, and would be in the heat with #3 BU, #4 Northeastern, #9 Columbia, #15 Georgetown and #16 Holy Cross.
In case you missed it - honors for team and team members

The Men’s Crew tied with cross country for team of the year at this year’s ‘Cuse Awards. Senior Vince Berry got the ‘Cuse Award for Men’s Rowing and Captain Rachael Ogundiran was the winner on the Women’s Team.



Polls courtesy of row2k.com