It's Harvard, Yale and All the Rest at Sprints

The Harvard lights came roaring into this season a month ago shouting "no prisoners," signifying their determination to sweep a swath through Eastern rowing without mercy. But this powerful eight is regrouping for a second charge down the mountainside this week after Yale forced a hasty retreat last Sunday.

Yale has been the big surprise of the lightweight season, dispensing with its opponents easily before putting away the high-stroking Harvard crew by a six-second margin last weekend. So Harvard goes into Sunday's sprints a clear underdog--the second seed after Yale--but it knows what it is up against.

And this reckless band of Harvard rowers is not prepared to concede control of the territory to those upstarts from New Haven, nor are they ready to give up their title as Eastern Sprints champions.

"I don't think that anyone expects this to be an easy race for Yale," Harvard coach Peter Raymond said last night. Seeing that its blow-them-away approach was unsuccessful with Yale, Harvard intends to resort to cunning and guile this week. The Crimson hopes to stay with Yale at a lower cadence, saving some of its great power for a final all-out sprint.

"Our race is not to row frenetically high," varsity stroke Jeff Brown explained after Sunday's loss. "We will row more our own race" at the Sprints. The duel promises to be a classic, coming down to a final 500-meter sprint.

Harvard wants very much to avenge last week's loss. Brown said that Yale rubbed in its win, angering some of the Crimson. "They are not used to winning so they don't know how to do it graciously," Brown said. "It's going to be a grudge match."

Brown added another motivation for the varsity, saying, "A lot of Harvard crews have lost a race in a season; the point is not to get a second."

The race for first place should be between Harvard and Yale, but Raymond feels that Cornell could also be a threat. The Big Red lost to Harvard by a little over five seconds in the first race of the season.

Things should be a bit easier for the undefeated J.V. who are the number one seed. After sneaking past Cornell in their first race because of a poor start, the J.V. went on to post victory margins of 11, 7, and 11 seconds.

Captain and J.V. six-seat Jeff Cooley said that the group is in control of its destiny. "It is up to us to decide to row as professional and precise a race and win as big as possible," he said.

The freshmen, despite being second seeds, should be the favorites. Their only loss came last weekend at Yale, when they hit a lane buoy after leading at 1000 meters. They, like the J.V., rowed through the rest of the competition, winning by open water every time.

So, the big race for the lights on Worcester's Lake Quinsigamond will be the varsity final at 4:45 p.m. And as two-seat Mike Cominsky said, "We are going for it."