'Cliffe Crew Tops 2 Boats In Last Race of the Spring

The Radcliffe crew team won the Eastern Regional Championships on the Charles yesterday, defeating the Philadelphia Girls' Rowing Club (PGRC) and the Vesper Rowing Club, also of Philadelphia. It is only the crew's second season.

The Radcliffe eight oar division, using a new modified start, held "an early lead all the way down the course, in a very exciting neck and neck race," coach Garrett S. Olmstead, a second year graduate student in Archaeology, said after the race.

The team completed the 1000-meter course in 3:14.5 seconds, defeating Vesper's time of 3:17, and PGRC's of 3:32 seconds!

Coxing the victorious Radcliffe team was Laurie Green. Charlotte Crane rowed the eighth position, Martha McDaniel rowed number seven, Dorothy Horns rowed sixth, Julie Meck fifth, Sarah Wood fourth, Cathy Barbash third, Judy Levine second, and Debby Weil rowed the bow position.

PGRC won the Eastern Regional Championship title last year. Vesper, the fastest competitor in this year's race and a twelve-year old club whose girls train constantly throughout the winter lifting weights and running, won the National Championship last year.

The Radcliffe team compiled a record of three firsts and two seconds in this year's overall competitions.

In the twelve school sprints held last weekend at Princeton, Radcliffe finished two seconds behind winning Princeton. Olmsted attributed the loss to fatigue. "We had been traveling all day, and we rowed considerably faster this weekend. I'm sure we could have beaten Princeton this time around. The current and slight tail wind helped a bit," he said.

Radcliffe will be unable to compete in the Nationals because of a lack of money. "We don't get much funding from Radcliffe in general," Olmsted remarked. The team was forced to undertake a fund raising campaign to obtain a shell and travel money for this season.