Love the interest, DWM. Today was a day where we got the first real view of how the best crews in the east (Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Brown) stack up with the two-headed west coast monster, and it was pretty much all Huskies and Bears. Washington won all 3 of its semifinals in the eights, the Bears won theirs in both the 1V and 3V, with their only second place finish in the 2V semi that found Cal and UW going head to head. In the Varsity 8 semis, the first race was stacked -- Washington (the Pac-12 champion) against Brown (Eastern Sprints champion), Princeton, and Yale. Best race of the day, as there was no room for error with only the top 3 advancing to the Grand Final Sunday. Washington edged out Princeton with Yale 3rd, with only 1.4 seconds separating the 3 of them. They went 5:28, 5:29, and 5:30, leaving Eastern Sprints champion in the Petite Final. In Cal's semi, the Bears got off to their usual strong start and had a relatively easy one length victory over Harvard, going 5:31. So not quite as quick as the first semi, which probably means something but not a lot -- UW, Princeton, and Yale really went all out in that one.
In the 2V Cal got the jump on UW and got out to about a half length lead, but Washington reeled them in over the second 1000 and had just under a length on the Bears at the line.
The 3V may have been the most impressive race -- the Bears took a lead at 500, Princeton pretty much caught them by the 1500 meter mark, but the Bears responded and crossed the line about a half length over a very good Princeton boat. The 3V is particularly fun to watch because, like last year, the freshmen boat pretty much became the 3V (as there is no freshman category at the IRAs) -- 6 freshmen and 2 sophomores in a super young and super impressive boat.
Unfortunately, the Varsity 4+ didn't have a good day, and finished 5th in their Grand Final and off the podium. Washington took the gold.
Tomorrow should be fun. Washington's the favorite, certainly in the 1V and 2V races, but the Bears and Princeton in particular should be competitive with them in all 3 races.

Well . . . UW apparently said "you guys swept the IRAs last year, this year it's our turn." Just a dominant performance by the Huskies, and a somewhat disappointing one for the Bears. The 3Vs were in second to the Huskies all the way down the course, but a Princeton sprint earned them the silver by .08 seconds. The 2Vs were probably the most disappointing, never contending and coming in 4th behind not only Princeton but also Dartmouth, which was a surprise and I'm sure disappointing. The 1Vs led by .1 seconds over UW at 500 meters, but both Washington and Harvard pulled away from them from there, the Bears finishing half a length behind Harvard for the bronze.
Takeaway: Washington was simply the class of the country this year, and the Bears would have had to row perfect races to beat them in any of the 3 8's finals, and they didn't come close to doing that today. It's easy to get spoiled by what we did last year, but the team will undoubtedly be hungry to have that kind of success again, and with the guys who should be back next year after the Olympics, along with some impressive new freshmen we saw this year, we'll have a great chance to get back there.