The Dartmouth men's lightweight crew pulled out a decent performance at the 2004 Eastern Springs, held at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Mass. The two freshman lightweight boats placed in the grand finals of their respective heats, accompanied by the third varsity lightweights.
The freshman lightweights managed to qualify for the grand final after knocking heavily favored Yale out of the qualifying race early in the morning. In the closest of races, Harvard won the heat by 5:53.355, while Dartmouth was third in 5:55.220, a little more than half a second ahead of Yale. In the final race, the Big Green boat finished in the sixth spot.
The second freshman lightweight team edged out Rutgers, Columbia and MIT to win the grand final, and the third varsity lightweights came in fourth in their grand final.
The varsity lightweight boat missed on qualifying for the grand final by two seconds.
"We had hoped to beat Princeton in our heat to make it to the finals but had a rough race and could not quite bridge the two-second gap needed to beat the Tigers," said captain John Hertzer '04.
The team took third in the petite finals, behind Delaware and Rutgers.
"Although we didn't perform as well as we would have liked, our freshmen turned in impressive performances," added Hertzer. "The team is looking to build speed for next year with five of the eight varsity boat oarsmen returning," he added.
The heavyweight crew also enjoyed a few good races. In the varsity eight qualifying heat, it was a three-boat race for the two spots that secured a place in the grand final. Dartmouth, who was the third boat, started sprinting at 42 strokes per minute with 400 meters to go, but eventually came nine-hundredths of a second short of Wisconsin.
Despite the good race they put together, the team had to race in the petite finals, which they won to earn seventh place overall.
"We feel that we are in good position for the national championship and expect an even better result in two weeks," commented captain David Shamszad '04.
In the second varsity event, Big Green finished fourth in both their heat and the petite final, earning tenth place overall. The freshman boat placed last in their heat, and after winning the third level final, finished in 13th overall in the regatta.
The lightweight crew will rejoin the heavyweights for the IRA Regatta in Camden, N.J. June 3 to June 5.
