M. heavyweight crew beats Brown for Content Cup, lightweights lose to Yale

Last Saturday, the men's heavyweight and lightweight crew teams raced for the Content and Goldthwait Cups, respectively.

The heavyweight men were able to capture the Content Cup from Brown. Penn raced in the regatta as a guest and was also able to beat out the Bears in a hotly contested race.

"It was a solid race, and I'm excited about it," junior heavyweight captain John Cranston said. "We're excited about the opportunity [to go into Easterns on a win], but not overconfident."

In the First Varsity Eight race, the Tigers, who finished in five minutes, 51.2 seconds, defeated Penn by 3.4 seconds, while Brown fell to Penn by merely seven tenths of a second.

The heavyweight men were able to complete the sweep on the day, winning the Second and Third Varsity Eights, as well as the Novice Eight and the Novice Four races.

"This year was a big turnaround," Cranston said. "Last year Brown came down and swept us.

"This is the first Brown dual I've won. It's nice to see all our hard work coming together before it absolutely has to."

The lightweight men were not as fortunate in their bid for the Goldthwait Cup in Harvard this weekend. Yale ended the day with the Cup in hand.

The Elis finished a full 5.3 seconds ahead of the Tigers, who were able to defeat Harvard by 4.5 seconds in the first varsity eight.

"Yale was ranked number one coming in," junior Chris Gill said. "The [First Varsity] and the [Second Varsity] lost right at the end, so we had a strong showing. We are going to need to find speed somewhere."

The other Tiger boats also had trouble with the Elis, falling to them in all but the Third Varsity Eight race.

"All the races were really close, so that was encouraging," Gill said.

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"Yale is always really fast. We knew that going in. They weren't just going to roll over."

Harvard finished last in all of the races except for the Second Novice Eight, in which it defeated Yale. Princeton did not field a boat in that race.

This weekend was the last tune-up for Eastern Sprints, which will take place May 19, in Worcester, Mass.

The heavyweight team looks to repeat as champions.

In last year's race, the team rowed the course in 5:31.45, finishing nearly three seconds ahead of its nearest competitor, Harvard. Coincidentally, the Crimson is the only team to beat the Tigers this season.

"We are a younger and inexperienced crew this year," Cranston said. "We only returned two guys from last year's boat, so our learning curve has been steep. There are lots of crews to look out for, like Harvard and Northeastern, that we haven't beat this year. I think we have put ourselves in a position that we could win [Easterns].

"It is our race to win, but not our race to lose. It would take a really good effort on our part."

In Worcester, lightweight men will look to improve on their sixth-place performance last year. This year they have only lost to Navy and Yale. They defeated every other team that they have faced from last year's final. They have not raced Dartmouth this year, a team that came in second place at last year's Easterns.

"We are going to hope that our learning curve is steeper than Yale's over the next couple of weeks," Gill said. "We are going to have to find more speed if we are going to get the Jope Cup at Sprints."