Brown Blasts By M. Heavyweights

Seven seconds?

Seven seconds?

How could it really be seven seconds?

After months of preparation and a weekend of frustration, the Harvard men's heavyweight crew will be muttering something similar to that for several weeks to come.

In a surprisingly lopsided race, the previously underfeated Crimson fell to still underfeated Brown by seven seconds Saturday at the Stein Cup in Providence, R.I.

"We're not really discouraged coming out of the race," senior fourman Mike Weh said. "I think we felt we had a strong race."

Brown, winners of this event last year as well, used a crushing start to blow Harvard quite simply out of the water. The Bears established an incredible full-length lead in the first 20 strokes and never looked back.

"They had a really good start," Weh said. "Traditionally, we have been down in the start and have been able to move through crews later in the race. Although we didn't have a particularly good start, we didn't have a particularly bad one either."

Harvard could not "move through" its opponent this time. Although it did not let Brown lengthen the lead, the Crimson could not make up any distance either.

"We held with them pretty well until 1500-meter mark," Weh said.

At that 1500-meter mark, the Bears launched another assault that put the finishing touches on the victory.

When all was said and done, Brown--undefeated for more than two seasons--crossed the line almost two lengths in front of Harvard.

"If we had been able to hold on at the start, things would have been closer in the end." said Weh, reiterating another point that will stick in the Crimson's mind for a while.

The oarsmen will see the Bears, along with all their other Ivy League friends, next weekend at Eastern Sprints in Worcester, Mass.

Brown took Sprints (along with everything else) last season. Harvard last won the race in 1990.

In spite of the lackluster performance this weekend, Weh and the rest of the crew remain positive about the prospects for victory at the Sprints.

"We're not far enough back that we can't make enough improvement this week to have a good race next weekend and be right with them," Weh said. "We're just going to try and turn things up this week and have a good race next weekend. We're still definitely in the hunt for it."