M. Crew Faces Rivals At Classic

While most Harvard students were traveling back to Cambridge from their various spring break destinations, the Harvard men's heavyweight and lightweight crews were racing in the 23rd annual Joe Jessop San Diego Crew Classic held in Mission Bay.

This west coast race has become a regularly attended event for Harvard, and Crimson boats have been very successful in past years.

Harvard's main rival in the heavyweight class has been the University of Washington, winner of more San Diego classics than any other school.

This year was no different than the past, with Harvard and Washington as the two favorites to win.

Both dominated their respective heats during preliminary races on Saturday. Harvard's varsity eight had the fastest heat time, being clocked at 5:55.6 minutes. The Huskies finished only a tenth of a second behind in their heat with a time of 5:55.7.

Thus the stage was set for Sunday's Grand Final. Windy conditions at Mission Bay indicated that the fast pace set at Saturday's preliminaries would be hard to match, and indeed the times for the final were much slower.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, Harvard seemed to be more effected by the slower conditions than Washington as the Crimson finished 3.62 seconds behind the Huskies' winning time of 6:09.4 minutes.

"We knew coming in that Washington was gong to give us a challenge," senior Alex Blake said. "Most of the west coast teams are on the water year-round, and we had only been on the water for two weeks before our first race."

Though the loss was disappointing for the heavyweights, it did manage to put open water between itself and the third place finisher, Ivy League rival Penn, and the racing experience will no doubt help at this weekend's Stein Cup at Brown.

The Crimson lightweights had a more successful trip out to Southern California, blowing away the competition in its respective division of the race.

The lightweights managed to finish a few zip-codes ahead of their rival crews, with a winning time of 6:34.98 minutes.

Second-place University of California at Davis finished almost twenty seconds behind the Harvard boat with a time of 6:53.4 minutes.

Hopefully the lightweights will be able to carry the momentum from San Diego back to the east coast. The men's lightweight crew's next race is in Atlanta, where it will row against Cambridge, Oxford and Yale.