The Radcliffe lightweight crew is used to competing against Wisconsin and Princeton, but this weekend the Black and White look for a new experience—beating them.

The lightweight team has entered boats in the Lightweight Eight and the Lightweight Four events. But with a new boat, and the normally powerful Princeton squad starting with the seventh bow number, the Black and White is expecting a break-through weekend.

“We’re starting behind Wisconsin and Riverside, but there’s a really significant home crowd,” lightweight captain Katie Greenzang said.

Traditionally, Radcliffe, Wisconsin and Princeton have been the leading trio at every major regatta in recent memory. The Black and White defeated Princeton once last season—at the Kencht Cup on April 13—and did not finish ahead of the Badgers all year.

The Radcliffe lightweights performed well in last year’s regatta, finishing behind only Wisconsin and the Riverside Boat Club in the Lightweight Eight event.

But the heavyweights’ performance was not on the same level as their teammates, as the first boat finished well behind the competition after a one-minute penalty was imposed for cutting across the course too close to a racing boat. The team was also penalized in 2000 for skipping a part of the course.

While the first boat finished in 37th place, Radcliffe’s second boat finished strong in 25th.

“We’re definitely looking forward to doing better,” heavyweight co-captain Courtney Brown said.

The heavyweight team has already shown improvement this season with the top finish at the Stonehurst Capital Invitational Regatta held in Rochester, N.Y., last weekend. The team easily beat second-place Syracuse in the Open Eight event by 12 seconds and in the sprints by 11 seconds.

The heavyweights entered three boats in the Head of the Charles regatta. Two will race in the Championship Eight events and a freshman boat will be compete in the Youth Eight.

“We’re really, really deep,” heavyweight co-captain Sarah Psutka said. “There was stiff competition to get in to the [first] boat.”

Members of the squad note that the amount of time spent on the water will play a critical role in the Black and White’s attempts to succeed this year. Many rowers trained extensively this summer, including junior Caryn Davies, a member of the U.S. national team, who won a gold medal last month.

Radcliffe coach Liz O’Leary noted her desire to see how her teams stack up against the better crew teams from around the nation.

“Hopefully we’ll have a clean race, a fast race and a fun one,” O’Leary said.