Harvard, Radcliffe Heavies Nab Redwood Shores Classic Titles

The Brown and Harvard men's heavyweight crew teams must be saying about each other, "I just can't get rid of you, can I?"

The two crews faced each other yesterday in the final of the Redwood Shores/Stanford Crew Classic at Redwood Shores, Calif., just one week after the Crimson beat out the Bruins by 3.3 seconds on the Charles.

This time the stakes were bigger, the pot of gold richer, the weather warmer and the margin, well, that increased too.

Harvard crushed the Bruins in the final, crossing the finish line in a time of 5:38.24, outclassing its opponent by an astounding 12 seconds. Brown finished in 5:50.87.

The Redwood Shores Classic is billed as the "Best of the East versus the Best of the West," and this year, the East reigned preeminent. The only western team (out of four) to pull out a quarterfinal victory was Washington, which outlasted Wisconsin by 2.3 seconds (5:53.90 to 5:56.20). The final tally: East--a 6-3 record and the champion and runner-up; West--a 1-4 record and a wounded pride.

Radcliffe Rules

But this weekend's regatta is more than just a celebration for eastern rowing programs, it is a celebration for the Harvard and Radcliffe crew programs. The Radcliffe women's heavyweight crew completed a clean sweep yesterday with a three-second win over host Stanford in the finals of the women's division.

The Black and White advanced to the finals with a 8.6-second win over UCLA (6:49.90 to 6:58.50) and a victory over Princeton in the semifinals--crossing the finish line ahead of the Tigers in the speedy time of 6:32.17.

The Harvard men's JV boat also advanced to the finals, where it succumbed to Brown, 6:01.35 to 6:04.92.

Bring Out Your Best

The men's varsity boat advanced to the finals with convincing victories over Stanford and Northeastern Saturday. The Crimson outlasted the host Cardinal by eight seconds, finishing the 2000-meter man-made salt water course in 5:55.80.

Northeastern, which beat California in a morning quarterfinal by 3.8 seconds, presented a much greater challenge for the Crimson, the regatta's defending champions. But aided by a strong tailwind, Harvard gradually pulled ahead of the Huskies--leading by one-quarter length at the 500-meter mark, onehalf length by the 1000-meter mark and three-quarters of a length with 500 meters to go.

The Crimson won the race by one and one-quarter lengths, crossing the finish line in the time of 5:40.76.

Brown (5:46.80) reached the finals by topping UCLA by seven seconds in the quarterfinals and then posting a time of 5:34.97 in the semifinals to overcome Washington by a full boat length.