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The Dartmouth
July 10, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Frosh lightweights snag first at Sprints

It was the biggest event of the season. It was what the team had been training for all year long. And this weekend it came in style.

Not only did the freshman lightweights bring home the gold medal from Eastern Sprints yesterday, capturing what could be called the most coveted award of the crew season for the first time since 1991, but the varsity first and second boats also capitalized, taking fourth and third, respectively.

Eastern Sprints, held at Worcester's Lake Quinsigamond, the lake that has been like home to Dartmouth's crew teams this year, gave the lightweight men's crews the chance they had been waiting for -- the chance to put together a spectacular weekend.

Due to poor weather throughout this spring, the men have been forced time and again to race their home races in Worcester, rather than at Dartmouth's home race course on the Connecticut River. This weekend all the experience paid off.

The highlight of the weekend was the gold medal performance submitted by the Big Green's freshman first boat.

The first freshman boat showed up at Sprints favored to win it all with the first seed. Early on, however, the scene did not look good for the Big Green.

After the Princeton Tigers jumped out to a lead by the 1,000 meter mark, Dartmouth was forced to come from behind to defeat the underdog Princeton Tigers.

Dartmouth put forth everything it could muster at this point and, in the remaining 1,000 meters, closed the gap, pulling ahead and grabbing the upset away from the Tigers.

Dartmouth finished in 6:08.4. Princeton followed just seconds later (6:13.1), and Rutgers finished up in third (6:19.4).

A 6:20.4 finish for the second varsity lightweight crew gave the Big Green the bronze medal. The boat slipped over the line just two-tenths of a second in front of fourth-placed Cornell. Princeton and Harvard finished up ahead of Dartmouth.

In the first boat, the men earned some satisfaction by avenging an earlier loss to Columbia but just missed a medal with their fourth place finish behind Princeton, Harvard and Yale.