The Big Green heavyweight crew won all four races against Syracuse University yesterday in Syracuse, N.Y. , as the squad prepares for its season finale at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship regatta June 3-5.
After a tough week of training and seat racing, and with a new line-up, the Big Green varsity faced a crew which finished 14th at the Eastern Sprints Championships May 9. Dartmouth finished 7th.
The Big Green exploded off the line to hold a one-length lead on a much improved Syracuse crew after the start.
Syracuse managed to stay within a length of Dartmouth until the last 500 meters of the 2,000-meter course when the Big Green increased the intensity and moved out to an open water victory. Dartmouth finished in a time of five minutes, 40.2 seconds --9.7 seconds ahead of Syracuse.
In the second varsity event, the Big Green had a margin of one length after the 500-meter mark and kept increasing the lead for the remaining 1,500 meters for the win.
All three freshman crews completed the sweep when they defeated their Syracuse counterparts The first freshmen eight won by three seconds.
For IRAs, the second freshman eight has split up into two fours, both of which raced a Syracuse freshman four.
One boat won easily. The other, after being in last place by a huge gap of open water early in the race, came back to finish second, one second ahead of the Syracuse boat.
All five boats will compete at IRAs in two weeks.