CREW

As in baseball this spring, Dartmouth's heavyweight crew is laden with seniors. There are six in Coach Pete Gardner's varsity boat and with the Intercollegiates the only remaining challenge, this group has the distinction of having beaten every major college heavyweight crew in the nation at least once during the past three seasons.

The one that eluded the Indians for so long, Harvard, succumbed at the Eastern Sprint championships as Dartmouth put its marbles on the line during the morning trial heat at Worcester, Mass., in a bid to upend the Crimson and Princeton, both seeded crews in the Sprints.

"We had to beat Princeton to make the finals," said Gardner, "but we decided that this was an opportunity to go a step further. We had never beaten Harvard and this was an opportunity. As far as we were concerned, it was much more gratifying to win the trial heat against Harvard than finish second in the trial and perhaps finish third or fourth in the final."

So they went for broke and made it. It was an even race for nearly half the 2000 meters, then Dartmouth took a slight lead. When it was over, the Indians had a five-second margin over the Cantabs and it didn't matter that they'd finish sixth in the championship race later in the day.

Gardner's strategy this spring has been to build slowly in preparation for the IRA Regatta at Syracuse on June 17-19. As a result, the Indians were not as far along in overall readiness for the cup races in April and May.

They were a convincing third in the Bill Cup race as Rutgers won and Boston University was second. A week later, with senior Terry Adams returned to stroke, the Indians met Wisconsin in one of the closest races of the spring season. Twice Wisconsin got the lead and twice Dartmouth pulled even. It Was even entering the final 20 strokes of the race and then, in the stretch, Adams lost three strokes when his oar caught the swirl of another oar's puddle on the recovery. By the time he regained the beat, Wisconsin had the race—by two-tenths of a second.

Then the Sprints and then the Packard Cup, the first race for the heavies on the Connecticut River in two seasons (weather chased the only race at Hanover last year). The Indians won easily against Syracuse and M.I.T. in their final outing before the IRAs.

Dartmouth's lightweight oarsmen also had a significant season. The Indians progressed steadily and gained a fine victory over Cornell in the Baggaley Cup race on the Connecticut and then reached the finals of the Eastern Sprints for the first time in many years, finishing sixth.