The Dartmouth men's varsity lightweight eight took on a pair of higher-ranked opponents in Yale and Rutgers Saturday in Derby, Conn. In this week's Eastern rankings, Yale held the No. 1 spot, with Rutgers seventh and Dartmouth ninth. Even though they lost to the Bulldogs, the Big Green rowers managed to defeat the Scarlet Knights.
In the varsity eight race on the Housatonic River, Yale took a solid lead and looked confident in a winning effort. Dartmouth outsprinted Rutgers in the final 500 meters to grab second place.
With a result of 5:35.2, Yale won the Durand Cup. The Big Green came second at 5:39.1, ahead of Rutgers at 5:40.5.
"We had a decent start against two fast crews which were both ranked ahead of us, but fell back to both of them off the start," said co-captain John Hertzer '04. "Yale went up pretty quickly, but we only lost a few seats to Rutgers. Once we had settled into our rhythm, we got through Rutgers without too much trouble, but were only able to narrow the gap with Yale to 3.9 seconds."
Yale won three of the other four events, with the closest competition being amongst the second varsity eight boats.
In the varsity four race, Yale finished with a 5.5 second lead over Dartmouth's A boat, who were followed by the B boat 7.6 seconds later. The Bulldogs also won the freshman/novice event by a 3.5 second margin over Big Green. Rutgers finished at a distant third, 16 seconds behind Dartmouth.
The only victory for the Big Green rowers came in the second freshman four race. Dartmouth took the win with a time of 6:41.2, while Yale came in second at 6:44.9.
"As a whole, it wasn't our best race so far, but it was good enough to beat a crew ranked ahead of us and to come close to another higher-ranked crew," said Hertzer.
In the race against Columbia Sunday, Dartmouth swept all four races in Worcester, Mass.
Battling for the Subin Cup, Big Green's varsity eight trailed after the first 25 strokes. However they rowed through and managed to gain a one-half length lead after the 1,000-meter mark. At the finish line, the Dartmouth boat was three seconds ahead of Columbia's.
"The race went well, so now we are going to focus on our start in preparation for our race against Cornell next weekend which should prove to be a challenge for each boat on the team," commented Hertzer.
Dartmouth's second varsity boat took the lead from the start and won by open water over Columbia's second. In the same race, Big Green's third varsity eight finished third.
In the freshman eight race, Dartmouth managed an eight-second win, while the second freshman four won their second race of the weekend.
The Dartmouth women's and men's lightweights will combine for a regatta Saturday, May 1, against Cornell.
