Penn, Yale Shock M. Crew

Something happened to the Harvard men's crew teams on their ways to undefeated seasons.

Both the heavyweight and lightweight crews, which appeared invincible in recent regattas, saw their perfect records blemished this weekend. The heavyweights met defeat at the hands of Ivy rival Penn, while the lightweights finished behind an unheralded Yale crew.

The heavyweights placed second during Saturday's rowing of the 56th annual Adams Cup on the Severns River in Annapolis, MD. Penn, who the Crimson had defeated just three weeks earlier, took the cup for the second consecutive year with a time of 5:43. Harvard completed the 2000-meter course in 5:44 while host Navy was third in 5:55.

"We knew Penn was going to be real fast," Harvard's Owen West said. "At San Diego [where the Crimson defeated Penn] their varsity didn't do well, but they had a strong J.V. boat and we knew they'd shuffle their lineup and make their varsity boat faster."

The Crimson heavyweights weren't the only ones to fall to a crew that they had beaten in San Diego. The Harvard lightweights, which defeated Yale at the San Diego Crew Classic were upset by the Elis on Saturday.

Harvard thought its biggest competition would come from Princeton, and the Crimson's main concern was the Tigers. Although Harvard succeeded in finishing ahead of Princeton, they could do little to stop host Yale.

Princeton fell out of contention early, falling behind at the 1000-meter mark. With 500 meters left, Yale picked up its pace and sprinted past Harvard and to the victory.

"We beat Yale at San Diego," Harvard's Alex Graham said. "We were really focused on Princeton. Yale was obviously peaking for this and we never considered them a threat until they were ahead.