In what proved to be a disturbing déja vu of Radcliffe’s tight second-place finish at the Knecht Cup last year, the Black and White once again fell to host and returning champion Princeton on the Cooper River in Camden, N.J., by a painfully narrow margin.

Despite the disappointment of the agonizingly close loss, Radcliffe turned in an overall positive performance, earning some glory with a hard-earned third-place Knecht Cup finish against some of the top women’s lightweight crews.

The Black and White began the weekend looking relatively strong, finishing Saturday’s lightweight eight heat in second place with a time of 8:01.6. This performance was bested only by the rival Tigers, which won the heat with a time of 7:51.8, arriving at the finish nearly 10 seconds before Radcliffe, leaving the Black and White with a deficit to overcome by Sunday.

Radcliffe had worked hard to shave several valuable seconds off of its time by the time of its second race. However, while the Black and White was able to narrow the Princeton lead, it never completely bridged the gap, slipping to third in the rankings in the varsity eight grand final after some dramatics in the race’s final stretch.

“It was a very fun race,” said co-captain seven-seat Kristin Hicks. “It was incredibly exciting and it was fun for us—we were pretty much dead even with Wisconsin.”

After an excruciatingly close finish, Radcliffe found itself not only behind the Tigers, who had posted a time of 6:46.7 to win the competition, but also behind 2004 champion Wisconsin, who traversed the course in 6:48.1. The Black and White’s third-place time of 6:50.3 meant that less than four seconds separated the top three finishers and was good enough to beat pursuers Stanford, Georgetown, and Villanova.

“When you have three teams four seconds apart, it’s really anybody’s game,” Hicks said. “It was incredibly exciting, it was good for us to come out and get some fun competition.”

The Radcliffe lightweight four had a somewhat less dramatic Sunday, finding itself out of action after finishing second-to-last in their qualifying heat the day before. The Black and White finished well out of the top two, 1:15.02 behind the first-place Princeton ‘A’ boat and about 30 seconds behind the Georgetown ‘A’ vessel, and did not receive a berth in the grand finals. Radcliffe missed making the petite finals by a little less than six seconds.

The Black and White also failed to contend in the novice eight, placing third out of six teams in the Saturday heat. The Tigers would eventually go on to win both the lightweight four and novice eight finals on Sunday.

“Princeton has always had a very good program,” Hicks pointed out, referencing its historical success against Radcliffe and pretty much the entire nation. “It’s still early in the season, and it was a chance for us to see where we are.”

The Black and White will be granted an opportunity for revenge in its next action on April 30, when it will return home to host the Tigers on the Charles River.

“Having gotten so close, we’re definitely psyched to see them again,” Hicks said, optimistic that the next race will produce different results. “I don’t really think it’s an insurmountable time difference.”