W.Crew takes 2nd in Class of '75 Cup while M.Crew splits weekend races

A full slate of races this weekend for the Harvard men's and women's crew teams provided another weekend of thrills and spills.

The men's heavyweight squad traveled to the scenic Seekonk River at Brown Saturday to take on the Bears in the Stein Cup. Brown, ranked first in the East and second nationally, used a fast start to defeat the Crimson for the first time since 1996.

The Crimson came in with a strong time of 5:54.4 in the 2000-meter race, just about two seconds and seven seats behind their rivals, who placed first at 5:52.3.

Brown also captured the second varsity and freshmen matches while Harvard came out on top in the third varsity race. Harvard stills leads the

all-time Stein Cup series 30-6.

"Brown just got off to a great start the first 20-30 strokes," junior Luka Djunic said. "We started chipping away near the end but it wasn't enough. They're definitely the team to beat in the east, but we still feel confident that we can challenge them for the Eastern Sprints title."

The men's lightweight team stayed in Cambridge Sunday for the Biglin Bowl regatta on the Charles River. For the sixth straight year, the Crimson held off MIT and Dartmouth to capture the race.

Harvard swept all of the varsity races, with the first varsity squad finishing with a time of 6:05.0 in the 2000-meter race, three seconds ahead of the Big Green boat. The freshmen boat was not as lucky as Dartmouth beat them by ten seconds at a winning time of 6:14.9.

Attempting to bounce back from a loss last weekend to defending national champions Brown, the women's heavyweight team journeyed to Lake Carnegie in Princeton to compete in the Class of '75 Cup versus the host Tigers and visiting Cornell squad.

Radcliffe's top two varsity squads were unable to come away with victories, with the first varsity boat coming in second to Princeton in the 2000-meter sprint at 6:44.48, just four seconds off the winning mark.

"The conditions were just about as good as we could ask for," senior captain Anne Browning said. "Yet the race was kind of a disappointment for us. We have the potential to beat [the Tigers], but this race didn't really show the speed of our boat."

The women's heavyweight team will have a chance for redemption next Saturday when it hosts Dartmouth and Syracuse, while the lightweight counterparts travel to Brown.

The men's heavyweights race against Princeton and MIT at home next weekend while the lightweights are idle.