Y150 finishes with hard-fought silver medal at 2009 IRA national champs

In a thrilling battle for silver and bronze at the 2009 IRA on Lake Natoma in California, the Yale lightweight varsity improved upon its 2008 national championship bronze medal by rowing through Cornell, Georgetown, and Harvard to capture this year’s silver medal as the second fastest college lightweight crew in the country. Gold went to deserving champion Princeton. 
  In a telling hallmark of the league’s competitiveness and intensity – and to Y150 consistency – Yale is the only team to claim a national championship medal two years running.
   The race had two parts: Princeton staked a 2-second lead in the first 500, and essentially capped its undefeated season with a dominant performance. But the exciting racing was amongst the other 6 crews, and especially between Harvard, Georgetown, Yale, and Cornell. First Yale, then Georgetown, then Harvard each in turn spent some time in second position in the first 1000 meters. But as the second half unfolded, Yale moved away from Cornell, then Georgetown, and it became a Yale-Harvard struggle for silver. With 500 to go, Yale led Harvard by only 0.3 seconds, but uncorked the fastest finishing 500 time of all 7 crews to push out to a 1.6 second margin from Harvard. Race time and splits here.
   The silver medal crew from Yale: cox Erin Anderson, stroke James Johnson, 7-seat John Grunyk, 6-seat Mikkel Krenchel, 5-seat Dan Ensslen, 4-seat Phil Lang, 3-seat Andrew Kaiser, 2-seat Brendan McCook, and bow seat Noah McColl. 
   The Y150 also sent a varsity 4+, with an all-sophomore line-up: coxswain Rachel Morgan, stroke Michael Buttrick, 3-seat Andrew Hakanson, 2-seat Colin Corcoran, and bow seat Carl Nunziato. The 4+ raced well to advance to the petite final, but came up a bit short, finishing fourth and tenth overall.
   With a silver medal varsity, an undefeated Sprints championship 2V, and a 1F and 3V that lost only one regular-season race between them and earned bronze medals at Sprints, the year in retrospect was another solid one for the Eli lightweights.