It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Looking to add an early-season warm-up to a schedule that in recent years has provided too few races before the all-important Eastern Sprints, the Harvard lightweight crew was a surprising victim of its own strategy Saturday.

The lights lost by a scant tenth-of-a-second to the University of Pennsylvania on the rain-swollen Schuylkill River. Cornell finished third.

Hoping to crack Princeton's stranglehold on lightweight rowing for the past three seasons, Harvard's narrow loss in the first race of the spring to the first race of the spring to the normally docile Quakers was disappointing for the Crimson oarsmen--not to mention surprising--but hardly a critical blow.

"This was part of an effort to get more races on our schedule," junior captain and bow man Mike Horvath said. "We didn't expect to have any problem and didn't row very well together, but better to have this loss now with five weeks to work on it."

The defeat in the varsity contest was an unsatisfactory end to the day, but the Crimson swept every other race. The junior varsity, first freshman, third varsity, and second freshmen all won their heats by fairly comfortable margins.

In the finale, rowing on a curved race course, the Harvard varsity came out strongly from its inside position on the staggered start, and quickly drew even with the leading Pennsylvania crew.

Eight hundred meters into the 2000-meter contest, the Crimson was four seats up on the hosts and rowing at a more economical 33 strokes per minute, compared to the Quakers' 35..

It seemed Harvard would pull away and win as expected, but Penn increased its cadence for a power move, and drew even with the Crimson at the 1000 meter mark.

"At that point, we were supposed to move as well," Horvath said, "but we were flustered, and it didn't get us anywhere."

Goodbye, Win

The two boats dueled evenly the rest of the way down the swiftly-flowing Schuylkill, but Penn gained the narrow victory in 5:37.

"We weren't stubborn enough to stick together and row well despite the conditions," Horvath said.

"It was a valuable race to have," six-man Austin Moore said, comparing the setback to the varsity heavyweight loss on opening day two years ago to a weaker Brown crew. The heavies bounced back, though, and eventually took the national championship.

"It shows us how much we have to get our act together," Moore added. "We'll crush them next time we see them."

The lights will seek their first win of the year this Saturday on the Charles against MIT and Dartmouth.