Harvard will be pressured by Princeton, which handed the three Crimson boats (each 3-1) their only losses of the year at the H-Y-P Championships two weeks ago.

The second-seeded varsity boat will be racing against fourth-seed Rutgers (Lightweight Coach Charles Butt's alma mater), sixth-seed Cornell, Penn, and Columbia in its preliminary race. Princeton, which beat Harvard by three-and-a-half seconds, is seeded first, with Yale third and Navy fifth.

"We've been improving our overall race technique over the last two weeks," Butt said, "and with a good race, I'm confident we can win."

The Crimson varsity lightweight crew on Sunday will be bowman John Velyvis, Tom Patterson, John Leete, Andy Hoyt, Captain Jim Himes, Sam Shuffler, Eric Davis, stroke Michael Horvath, and Coyne.

"We've finally made the jump to trust ourselves at a higher cadence," Coyne said, "and we've been hitting 42 or 43 [strokes per minute] consistently off the start."

The JV lightweight crew is also seeded second behind the Tigers, which it lost to by one-and-a-half seconds. The freshman lightweights are seeded third behind Rutgers and Princeton.