Lightweight Crews Beat Tigers, Elis on Charles

The varsity lightweight crew successfully defended the Goldthwait Cup for an unprecedented sixth year in a row against Princeton and Yale Saturday with a low-stroked, three-quarter length victory on the 2000-meter Charles River sprint course.

The Crimson victory, Coach Fred Cabot's third in four starts, ranks Harvard and Cornell as the chief threats to break M.I.T.'s unbeaten record at the Eastern Sprint Championships on Worcester's Lake Quinslgamond next Saturday.

M.I.T. rowed as a guest in every contest except the varsity race, and the Engineer's four-foot victory over the Crimson JV's kept the lightweights from attaining a clean sweep in Saturday's regatta. The freshman lightweights kept their victory streak alive with a two-length win over M.I.T.

Understroking the other eights for the body of the race, the Crimson varsity jumped to a quick lead at the start and never let it go. Princeton made its bid to close the gap with three-quarters of a mile to go, moving the stroke up to a 35, while the Crimson moved on at 31, but even then the Tigers couldn't catch the varsity.

Shortly afterwards, sophomore stroke Galen Brewster upped the stroke for the sprint and finished at a 38 in 6:35.5, three-quarters of a length ahead of Princeton, who was clocked in 6:36.6, Yale, who stayed with Harvard only at the start, finished three lengths behind the Tigers.

"I was glad to win the race," said coach Cabot, "but there's room for improvement." Judging from the races so far, Cabot puts Harvard very near Cornell but still behind M.I.T. for the Championships next Saturday.

In the closest race of the afternoon, the Crimson JV's "rowed a very good race" to beat Yale and Princeton by a comfortable margin only to lose to M.I.T. by four tenths of a second.