April 4, 2008

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The second week of the spring rowing season has the Navy lightweight and women's teams challenging for a total of three trophies between the two programs this weekend.

The women's team will start the weekend of competition Saturday morning when the Mids face Boston University and George Washington starting at 8 a.m. on the Cooper River in Camden, N.J. The winner of the varsity race between the three programs will be awarded the Playfair Cup. The Terriers have dominated the series, winning each of the first seven races for the Cup until the Mids broke through and won the race and the accompanying hardware last season for the first time.

Navy opened its 2008 season last week by placing third in the varsity division at the Murphy Cup in Philadelphia.

"We are expecting Boston University to be pretty good again this year, and George Washington is rowing very well under their new head coach," said Navy head coach Mike Hughes. "We are anxious to see what improvements we have been able to make since our opening day of racing last Saturday."

It will be a busy weekend of racing for the lightweight team as they will first race Saturday evening against Yale on Lake Carnegie in Princeton, N.J., then will make the short drive to Philadelphia to compete against Penn Sunday morning.

The winner of Saturday's varsity race will earn possession of the Eads Johnson Trophy, with the Callow Cup up for grabs during the Sunday's varsity race against the Quakers.

Navy won the Eads Johnson Trophy last year and has won the trophy in three of the four years it has been challenged for, while the Mids have won the Callow Cup in each of the last seven years. Sunday's race will break a 26-26 deadlock in the series between Navy and Penn.

The Mids enjoyed a successful opening to their season last weekend by sweeping all four races from Princeton, which included a victory in the inaugural varsity race for the Joseph Murtaugh Cup.

"I'm very excited about racing twice this weekend," said Navy head coach Rob Friedrich. "Yale is always one of our toughest opponents and they seem to be very deep this year. I'm expecting some tight racing just like last weekend against Princeton. Racing Penn on Sunday after only 14 hours of rest will be a great test of our endurance. This is our only opportunity to race twice in the same weekend before Eastern Sprints, so it should be a great learning experience for us."