Does anybody hear the opening ominous chords of Deep Purple rising in the background?

This Sunday, smoke will surely be on the water as the Radcliffe heavyweight and lightweight crews journey to the Cooper River in Camden, N.J., to battle the East Coast’s top schools at the Eastern Sprints Championships.

The Sprints are the second-biggest meet of the year for the varsity crews, right behind the NCAA and IRA Championships for the heavyweights and lightweights, respectively.

“This is the one that everybody’s trained for, and we’re going to leave everything we have out on that course,” senior Catherine Sheehan said.

HEAVYWEIGHTS

The No. 9 heavies will arrive in the Garden State as the defending Eastern Sprint and NCAA champions.

Thus far, the first varsity heavyweight eight has had a trying year, falling by small margins to No. 4 Brown (0.54 seconds) and No. 2 Princeton (2.8 seconds) before succumbing to No. 6 Yale by 4.9 seconds two weeks ago.

Last week, though, a reshuffling of the lineup seemed the Black and White, as they torched No. 18 Boston University by almost 11 seconds.

“This has been a strange season,” co-captain Lis Lambert said. “An extremely close race with Brown after a series of delays and changes of plans, staggered starts against Yale and Princeton, and so on.  None of which is meant to be an excuse for the season, but…it feels like though we’re near the end of the season, we haven’t yet had a truly conclusive test of our speed.”

Like all the crews, the 1V spent its week of practice leading up to the Sprints tapering and working on technique, as well as doing some short high-pressure work practicing specific sections of the race such as the start and sprint.

“It’s really going to be a 4-boat race, between us, Yale, Princeton and Brown,” Lambert said. “After these four teams, there is a steep drop off. It’s going to be a dog fight, and we’ll all have to race our absolute best in the Grand Final.”

The Sprints will provide the 1V an opportunity to compete against the nation’s best on an even playing field.

“This will be our chance to conclusively prove to ourselves that we are a fast, strong, deep and competitive team,” Lambert said.

The second varsity eight has also had an odd year of racing, which has included a near tie with the Bears in the dark on choppy water and a victory over Yale due to a Bulldog disqualification.

“I think our boat and team feels really confident heading into Sprints,” senior Megan Smith said. “It’s always exciting to race with the best schools. This is what we train for all year, to line up 6 boats across and see who can cross the finish line first.”

A pair of varsity fours will hit the water with the benefit of having raced with the same nucleus in recent races.

“We’ve gained a lot of speed over the course of the last few weeks, and we’re totally ready to go,” junior Ella Steim said.

Every boat can generate points for the Black and White, so the races from the pair of novice shells are also key.

The 1N will duke it out with rivals Princeton, Brown and Cornell in the crew’s final competition of the year.

“They all beat us, and so that’s really not cool,” freshman Carrie Williams said. “I think we are prepared to be pissed off and row with a vengeance…Hopefully, the other teams will cry.”

The second novice has also spent the week prepping for its biggest day of the year.

“We’ve been working mainly on matching power application, fine-tuning our starts, and getting mentally prepared for our races,” freshman Olivia Gage said.

LIGHTWEIGHTS

The lightweight side comes in as the nation’s No. 1 crew. Last year’s Eastern Sprint runner up, the first varsity eight enters the races with the most momentum this particular team has ever had.

Two weeks ago, the boat beat then-No. 1 Princeton, a team that had topped Radcliffe in the teams’ ten previous meetings. Last week, the Black and White dismantled No. 11 MIT by 28 seconds.

The Tigers have taken the last two Eastern Sprints, and will definitely be Radcliffe’s top challenger.

“We have our work cut out for us,” co-captain Ame Bothwell said.

The Black and White have also beaten No. 3 Georgetown and No. 5 Stanford this season, and raced against the second varsity heavyweights from Radcliffe and BU last weekend in preparation.

“Our goal is simply to win,” Bothwell said. “I feel like we are definitely on our way to doing that.”

One varsity four will be competing for the Black and White, the only lightweight boat that has more than one heat.

The foursome squared off against Radcliffe’s heavyweight varsity “B” four last week on the Charles, and lost by less than one second.

Finally, the novice eight will get another shot at rivals Wisconsin, Georgetown and Princeton.

All three teams beat the Black and White at the Knecht Cup, but under inauspicious circumstances.

The Radcliffe boat caught a couple crabs, but Wisconsin caught two over-the-head crabs in a row, losing control of their boat and shooting into the Black and White’s lane in the middle of its the sprint. Radcliffe had to stop and wait for the Badgers to get out of the way, which obviously slowed the Black and White down considerably.  

“That Knecht Cup performance was easily our worst competition ever,” freshman Rachel Orler said. “Wisconsin and Georgetown both beat us by relatively small margins, so we should be able to take them easily this weekend.”

—Staff writer J. Patrick Coyne can be reached at coyne@fas.harvard.edu.