For the third time in four years, Dartmouth's heavyweight varsity eight defeated the Yale Bulldogs. In the exciting race at Yale, Dartmouth finished with a time of 5:36.6, one second ahead of the Bulldogs' 5:37.7 showing.
From the beginning of the regatta, all signs pointed toward a favorable outcome for the Dartmouth men. After winning the lane draw, varsity coach Scott Armstrong chose the inside lane.
Because of their strong starts all week in practice, Armstrong believed that the rowers could easily make up the stagger and head into the turn even, putting them at an advantage for the latter portion of the race.
As hoped, Dartmouth put their favorable starting position to good use. After a great start, Dartmouth's varsity eight, comprised of Melissa Mowat '03 (coxswain), Peter Noteboom '05, Arthur Peterson '05, Jay Conner '03, Joe Gwin '05, Dirk Blum '03, Jaime Velez '03, Don Wyper '05 and Tom Schenck '03, obtained an early lead on the Bulldogs.
As Blum noted, "We had a great start, even better then most of our starts in practice. We took off at a 46-48 stroke rating, and settled to 36-37. By the time the turn came around we were leading by about three quarters of a boat length."
Eventually, Dartmouth had nearly a full boat length on the Yale crew. Soon, Yale began making an apparent comeback, staying even with Dartmouth's boat for nearly 400 meters. With about 600 meters remaining, Yale made a bold move unleashing what Blum called "a massive sprint."
After Yale came back within a half boat length, Dartmouth began its final sprint with 250 meters remaining in the race. Because of this final sprint, Dartmouth pulled out a win by a quarter boat length.
While elated about the victory over rival Yale, Dartmouth rowers were not completely satisfied and saw this race as a stepping stone to further improvement.
"The race was too close for comfort, but a lot can be learned from these situations," Blum said.
"After a great start like we had, we simply have to put the other crew away, instead of sitting on their bow deck for a quarter of the race. We also have to work on our finishing speed."
Despite some frustration with the small margin of victory, the general attitude was that of excitement over the win. With an early season win over an Ivy League rival, the Dartmouth team has lofty expectations for the remainder of the season.
"It looks as if we have a good crew together this year, and we have high hopes for the season," Blum said. "We have a great mixture of veteran leadership and youth in the crew, with five seniors and four sophomores."
Although the Dartmouth team took the varsity race, the Bulldogs won the other three races. In the second varsity race, Yale defeated Dartmouth's eight by over six seconds.
The freshman eight race went to Yale in 5:53.5 over Dartmouth's 6:11.3. Yale's third varsity four took its race in 6:57.5, ahead of Dartmouth's 7:17.2.
Dartmouth hits the Connecticut River next Saturday when Boston University and Rutgers travel to Hanover to compete for the Bill Cup.
