Princeton Snaps Lights Winning Streak At 28

The Princeton Tigers finally did what they have been dreaming of doing for the past six years Saturday by edging Harvard's lightweights by the narrowest of margins, smashing Yale in the process and snapping the Crimson win streak at 28.

All season long Harvard knew that Princeton would be the crew to beat; the Tigers and the Crimson had virtually uniform margins over every squad they met, and Princeton, with its most powerful crew in years, knew it was now or never.

On Saturday the Tigers made it happen, nipping Harvard by .4 seconds and insuring themselves a trip to Henley this summer. The Crimson J.V. went under to Princeton by an even closer .2 second margin. And the only bright spot in the day for Harvard was its frosh crew's victory by .4 second over the Tiger Freshmen.

The Crimson game plan of getting a jump on Princeton at the start failed to work on Yale's Housatonic River which is curved and requires a staggered start. Harvard caught a crab in the first ten strokes and found itself nearly a length behind when the crews settled. Yale, as expected, was never in the race.

The Crimson gained on the Tiger crew during the body of the race pulling to within three seats at 500 meters to go--but Harvard didn't have enough left at the finishing sprint. Both crews picked up the stroke but neither could move on the other.

Neck and Neck

It was neck and neck down to the finish but the Tigers refused to die and it was Harvard in second place for the first time in six seasons with Yale a distant third seven lengths back.

The preceding races had been nip and tuck and the stage was set for, the varsity race by Princeton's even narrower victory over the Crimson J.V. Harvard's second boat stayed even with the Tigers off the line and up to the 1000 meter mark where the Crimson took a power 20 and moved out on Princeton by two seats.

The margin stayed the same until the Tigers began their sprint with 400 meters to go. Princeton sprinted about 10 strokes before the Crimson reacted and picked up three seats in the process. Harvard then began its sprint but again both crews stayed deadlocked down to the wire. And again the Eli crew was out of it, five lengths back of the leaders.

Harvard's freshmen overcame a poor start and yet another tough Princeton crew to eke out their victory, clobbering the hapless Elis in the process.