CORRECTION APPENDED

The men’s lightweight crew team had a banner day Saturday, coming back from the annual H-Y-P regatta in Princeton, N.J., with both the Goldthwait and Volger Cups. [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

The Crimson varsity eight bested the Tigers’ and the Bulldogs’ top boats in the last race of the day, meaning that Harvard would return home not only with the Goldthwait Cup—given to the winning varsity eight boat—but also with the Volger Cup, awarded to the team with the most overall points.

The Goldthwait Cup returns to Cambridge after a disappointing third-place finish for the varsity eight in 2006. Harvard has now won the Cup four out of the last five years. The Goldthwait Cup is one of the biggest prizes—and represents one of the biggest rivalries—in the sport of collegiate crew.

“It goes way back to the start of Olympic rowing,” said varsity eight coxswain Mark Adomanis, who is also a Crimson editor. “We’ve been duking it out with Yale and Princeton for as long as lightweights have been racing.” [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

Leading up to the varsity eight showdown, the day had belonged to Yale. The Bulldogs won the second varsity eight, third varsity eight, freshman eight, and second freshman eight races.

But the Crimson’s varsity eight victory catapulted the team past Yale into first place in the overall standings. The overall win was by the slimmest of margins, 32 to 31, although Harvard’s top rowers didn’t realize what their race would mean for the overall standings as they took to the starting line.

“The starting line of the race course is about three kilometers away from the boathouse,” said senior four seat Mansour Benkreira, “so you have to leave the boat house about 45 minutes before the start of your race. So we didn’t know what the results of the other races were while we were warming up on the water.” [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

The varsity eight crossed the finish line in 5:51.8, while Princeton came in second in 5:55.0, and Yale placed third in 6:02.8.

After a strong start by Yale, Harvard trailed in second in the early going

The Crimson continued to push, and evened up quickly with the Bulldogs.

Both Harvard and Princeton eventually passed Yale and found themselves fighting for first place over the second half of the course.

“We pushed very well in the middle 1000,” Adomanis said. “Yale started to fall back a bit, and Princeton was fighting strong. They were putting up a very good effort.”

The Crimson maintained a boat-length lead over the Tigers and was able to push out into open water in the last 500 meters before crossing the finish line 3.2 seconds ahead of Princeton.

“In the last 500, we didn’t quit,” Adomanis said. “That’s always the danger when you get up in a situation like that and you’re ahead of a crew…. You let them stick around, and you let them make it close again.”

That was precisely the issue that the men’s second varsity eight had faced in its race earlier in the day.

The Crimson had opened up an open water lead on both Yale and Princeton before Yale passed Harvard over the last 500 meters.

“Yale made a move and we weren’t able to respond well to it,” said second varsity eight coxswain Kevin He. “It was very disappointing.”

The lightweights now must prepare for the EARC Sprints, which will be held in Worcester, Mass., in two weeks. The Sprints are a prelude to the IRA National competition held during the first weekend in June in Camden, N.J.

The team is looking forward to a strong showing at both events.

“I think everyone is pretty excited to see how much more speed we can get out of this boat,” Adomanis said.

CORRECTION: The April 30 sports article "Lights Return Trophy-Heavy"  contained several errors. First, it incorrectly identified the the Vogel Cup as the "Volger Cup." Second, senior Mansour Benkreira, who is described as the varsity four-seat in the article, is in fact the varsity two-seat. Finally, varsity coxswain Mark Adomanis is quoted in the story as saying, "It goes way back to the start of Olympic rowing." In fact, Adomanis stated that the tradition hearkened back to the start of collegiate rowing.