Changes have been made since the Brown race, both in the Radcliffe JV and the Brown boat, which bodes well for the Black-and-White.

The Brown JV that Radcliffe faced in March was seven seconds faster than the Bruins's varsity boat. Since then, Brown has sorted out its first and second boats, so the Radcliffe JV will be facing a completely different boat at Sprints. The Radcliffe boat has made some changes as well.

"We've been getting faster every week since the first of the season," senior Rosie Hyson said.

Besides Brown, Radcliffe is keeping an eye open for Northeastern, who looked strong when the two teams did some practice pieces together Saturday. Wisconsin is also a wild card. Since none of the Eastern schools have raced against the Badgers yet, it is hard to judge how the champion from the weaker Midwest will fare against the race-tested Eastern crews.

Less Is More

The Radcliffe lightweight four, undefeated so far, is looking forward to the Sprints as a chance to prove themselves against some real competition. The hardest part of Radcliffe's season has been finding good lightweight squads to race against. For the most part, the Black-and-White has won its races by open water, leaving opponents well behind by the first 500m mark.

University of Rhode Island offered Radcliffe their first close race, and, as senior Joy Kingston said, "it was a little scary having a boat next to us the whole race."

Along with U.R.I., Radcliffe will have the chance to face McGill, a lightweight team from Canada. One of the Canadian women was a finalist at the CRASH-B indoor rowing championships this year, so McGill has a strong, if not necessarily fast, team.

"It should be great," Kingston said. "We weren't racing well together at the beginning of the season, but we've really come together lately. It would be satisfying to race, and beat, some good crews this weekend."