W. Heavyweights in Action Today

The Radcliffe crew team's race against Dartmouth and Syracuse tomorrow on the Charles River is the sort of contest that would have Las Vegas buzzing.

"We really have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow," senior Mindy Sick said. "All three teams are sort of mysteries--including ourselves."

Indeed. Going into tomorrow's race, the Crimson is perhaps the biggest mystery of all--even to the Crimson rowers themselves.

The team's two big races of this spring season--against Brown the week before spring break and against Princeton and Cornell last week--have led to wildly different conclusions about the squad.

Against Brown, the Crimson was "shellacked," in Sick's words, by 12 seconds by what was previously considered to be only an above average team.

Against Princeton, the defending league champion, and Cornell, however, Harvard fared much better, losing to the Tigers by only six seconds and beating the Big Red.

Those performances have led to a general feeling of cautious optimism in the Crimson ranks going into this weekend.

"I think there is the feeling that we're getting better, that although we didn't do so well against Brown, that we're doing a lot better now," sophomore Amara Tandy said. "I don't think anyone is making any bold predictions, however."

To add to the pre-race suspense, both Dartmouth and Syracuse are unknown entities.

Dartmouth is probably less of a mystery--but only by a very small margin.

The Big Green always have a good team, and a one-second loss to a strong BU team and a one-second win over Yale last weekend strongly suggests that this season is no exception.

But the team lost some strong seniors from last year's team and, besides, anything can happen on any given day in crew.

Syracuse, on the other hand, is almost completely unknown--the Orangemen generally participate in competitive circle well south of these parts,

"Both teams are sort of unknown," Sick said. "Dartmouth will be good, and we have sort of been focussing on them, but even they aren't completely scouted out. We'll just show up and see how it goes."