For the Princeton University men’s lightweight crew, its varsity 4 without coxswain provided the major highlight at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) national championship regatta.

The quartet of senior Will Von Cleve, junior Tyler Valicenti, junior Ryan Pristo, and junior Harrison Shure earned silver, making it a third straight year that the program earned a medal in that division.

“Those guys did great, those guys came together and they really like rowing together,” said Princeton head coach Marty Crotty of the boat that clocked a time of 6:10.144 over the 2,000- meter course on Lake Natoma in Sacramento, Calif. and took second with Harvard posting a winning time of 6:06.700.

“There is a lot going on there, you have got a really great senior leader in Will Von Cleve. He takes charge in there and he is steering the boat; he steered a really straight course and they had a great rhythm.”

While Crotty acknowledged that things didn’t come together collectively as he had hoped at the IRAs with his varsity 8 placing fifth in the grand final and the varsity 4 with cox taking sixth, he believes the team’s intense training in preparation for the regatta will pay dividends in the future.

“There was no change from Sprints but down the road that might have been the start of something,” said Crotty, whose team had nearly three weeks of training after competing in the Eastern Sprints on May 14.

“The way we went about our business at IRA training camp may be the start of something that will make us a better team in the future.”

Heading west a week before the start of the IRAs, the Tigers culminated their training with a four-day camp at the University of California boathouse on the Briones Reservoir in the hills above Berkeley.

“A good majority of this team is coming back and trips like that are important just to establish the way you want to conduct your business and seeing what is the maturity of the group,” said Crotty.

“I felt that trip really brought the entire staff together, that was definitely a positive of the whole two-three week operation. The more professional atmosphere forces the guys to be more self-sufficient and forces them to be more of a crew. It forces them to circle the wagons. It is a good chance to get off campus and get away from any distractions we might have here.”

In reflecting on the season, Crotty credited his group of seniors with displaying maturity in setting a positive tone even though they weren’t in the top boats.

“For the first year in a while, I didn’t have a lot of seniors in the upper ranks,” said Crotty, whose Class of 2017 included captain Forrest Daugherty along with Chris King, Tyler Hoffman, Matt Lotocki, and Arman Odabas in addition to Van Cleve.

“They were great leaders and beyond reproach in terms of character, integrity, class, and sportsmanship. All values that make a great leader, they possess. They are going places. It was an interesting class, they didn’t lead from the front. The seniors are really, really class acts.”

While Crotty is excited about his returning rowers, he is looking for them to show more fortitude going forward.

“We just have to add a little more grit to it,” said Crotty. “I am thinking less about what just happened than what has to happen. There is a cap to what physical capacity you can have in lightweight rowing so it is all of the things that you can’t see that are ever more important, that is where my focus goes immediately.”

Noting the parity in the league where the top boats are essentially within a length and a half of each other, Crotty is determined to fine-tune his coaching approach to get the most out of his athletes.

“I need to create a different mindset, a different way of thinking,” said Crotty.

“I need to educate these guys in a different way, which is not going to be as comfortable. Many days it is going to feel harder even though we are not doing more work, many days are going to feel harder even though we are not spending more time down here. I have to be willing to watch a guy walk out of a boathouse in a less comfortable state.”