...Radcliffe Follows Suit

It was a successful weekend for the Radcliffe crew teams, as the Black and White varsity boats swept all four of their races.

The undefeated heavyweights cleaned up in New Haven, Conn., the hometown of their bitterest rivals. But it just wasn't the same without Yale.

The heavies convincingly defeated both Princeton and Cornell yesterday in a regatta rescheduled from April 15. Yale was chosen as a convenient site because all three teams raced in the vicinity of New Haven Saturday.

The regatta was particularly important for the Radcliffe crew because both Princeton and Cornell entered the race undefeated in Ivy League competition. Last week, the Radcliffe team beat Princeton in Redwood Shores, Ca., in races that don't count in the Ivy standings.

"It was a big race," heavyweight Coach Liz O'Leary said, "because the rankings had Princeton second and Cornell third with Radcliffe first."

The Radcliffe women finished the race in an extremely fast 6:08.6 ahead of Princeton (6:12) and Cornell (6:16.7). O'Leary attributed the rapid times to the natural tail current of the Housatonic River and a vicious tail wind.

But O'Leary pointed out that the heavies still pulled their oars at an unusually fast pace.

"We had a stroke rating between 35 and 35.5 [strokes per minute]," O'Leary. "The standard is usually between 34 and 34.5."

The Radcliffe eight began to pull away from the field at the 1000-meter mark.

O'Leary said that the Black and White's breakaway is "a power move. We have a move in the middle somewhere that the varsity eight look forward to. They anticipate it. They get really excited."

The heavies were victorious on Saturday, too, winning a regatta in Hanover, N.H.

Connecticut Story

The Radcliffe eight finished the course on the Connecticut River in a time of 6:30, ahead of Syracuse (6:48.8) and Dartmouth (7:05).

The weather was considerably more formidable in Saturday's race, including snow and bitterly cold conditions.

"You didn't even know if your hand was on the oar," McCagg noted.

The Radcliffe lightweight eight won its race on the Charles Saturday with a time of 7:56, defeating Mount Holyoke and Wellesley by margins of more than 15 seconds.

Lightweight Co-Captain Sarah Yeates described the race conditions as "really horrible with a lot of rough wind and water."

"It didn't feel like the best row we've ever had," Yeates said. "Rowing into a headwind slows you down."

Difficulty

The Radcliffe eight has had difficulty finding competition this year and Yeates attributed the problem to a lack of funding at some schools for lightweight women's crew. As a result of the lack of competition, the lights have rarely raced against other varsity eight boats.

"I was particularly happy with the lightweight eight because it has been a while since they've been able to be what they set out to be," lightweight Coach Holly Metcalf said. "They settled down as a group."

The lightweight four also won their race on the Charles on Saturday in a time of 8:33, more than 15 seconds ahead of Wellesdley and MIT.