WORCESTER, Mass.--At the halfway mark of the 2,000-meter race, the Big Green varsity lightweight crew surged ahead and never looked back, winning the Eastern Sprints Championships yesterday for the first time in history.
With the win, the Dartmouth lightweights also won the Jope Cup, an award presented to the school whose lightweight crews score the highest total points on the freshman, second varsity and varsity races. The second varsity finished fourth and the freshman boat finished second.
In the Jope Cup competition, each boat receives points depending on the order of finish. The first place finisher is awarded the highest number of points and the varsity event is worth more points than the freshman event.
"Everybody won this one," said lightweight coach Dick Grossman of the Jope Cup victory.
All three lightweight crews qualified easily for the grand finals during the morning heats. The road to victory began with the freshman lightweight's second place finish in the finals.
The Princeton freshman eight, filled with recruited rowers, jumped out to an early lead, with Dartmouth and Yale even with each other. Harvard inched ahead to join the battle for second place with the Big Green and Yale.
The three crews were even at the 1,000-meter mark, with the Tigers ahead of this pack by open water. Harvard rowed to a one-seat margin over Dartmouth, and Dartmouth had one seat on Yale.
With 500-meters to go, the Big Green moved back on Harvard and the two crews matched each other stroke for stroke and Dartmouth crept away from the Crimson to earn second place and pick up 10 points toward the Jope Cup competition.
The second varsity, seeded second heading into the weekend, were not as successful as they had hoped. During the afternoon race, the boat had a bad start and was last off the line.
The Big Green came back strong but found themselves in the position of catching up the ground they had lost at the start. Cornell led from the start, with Princeton at its heels.
Dartmouth continued to move and at one point was even with the U.S. Naval Academy and Yale in a tie for fourth. At halfway, the Big Green started to close the margin separating Dartmouth from Harvard and were still moving strongly with 30 strokes to go in the race.
The second varsity just missed a bronze medal, finishing fourth behind Cornell, Princeton and Harvard respectively. The Crimson crossed the finish line two seconds ahead of the Big Green, but the Big Green earned eight points toward the Jope Cup and, at this point in the afternoon, trailed Princeton by one point.
It was up to the varsity to have a big race in order to surpass Princeton for the points trophy, and the Big Green lightweights had no problem coming through with the race of their lives. From the start, Dartmouth held on to a narrow lead, with no more than two-thirds of a length separating all six crews.
The Big Green rowed at a high, 38 strokes per minute, but seemed to have no problem holding on to the lead. Dartmouth had a one-seat margin over Princeton, there was a two-seat gap between the Tigers and Cornell, and Cornell was one seat ahead of Harvard.
At the 1,000-meter mark, the Big Green made a move and jumped the rating up to 40 and a half to break away from the field for good. After the power-20, the crew settled back down to a rating of 38 and held a lead of three-quarters of a length on Princeton.
Princeton, after working so hard to stay with the Big Green all the way down the course, fell apart at the end when Harvard and Cornell rowed through the Tigers to fight for second place.
But Dartmouth had first place wrapped up, finishing in a time of five minutes, 45.3 seconds and breaking the course record by 3.7 seconds.
"It was the perfect race," said Dave Cramer '93, the stroke of the varsity. "We had the race of our lives."
With the win in the varsity race and with the demise of the Princeton lightweight varsity, which finished fourth, the Big Green won the Jope Cup with 33 points. Harvard and Princeton were tied for second with 31 points each.
"Above all, it was especially nice to win the Jope Cup," Captain Chip Davis '93. "Everyone on the crew all year was giving it their all. Regardless of which boat people ended up in, it just shows that we're the fastest lightweight crew in the country."
This year marked the first time that a Dartmouth lightweight crew won Sprints at the varsity level. The Jope Cup victory also marked the first time that Dartmouth captured that award.
"Based on the racing up to this point in the season, I had confidence that it was going to happen," Grossman said. "The leadership of the senior class was tremendous and everybody worked hard to achieve their goals. They did everything right."
The season has ended for the freshman eight and the second varsity, but the varsity will continue to train for the Lightweight Nationals at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships in June. Since the Big Green have already won Sprints, Dartmouth will be considered the favorite to win Nationals as well.
