With the national championship and the end of the season fast approaching, Georgetown’s lightweight men’s crew team posted a dominant performance in Saturday’s regatta against Delaware and Rutgers.

The No. 5 lightweight varsity eight took first place over No. 7 Rutgers and No. 9 Delaware in a quartering headwind. After 2,000 meters on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, N.J. – where the men’s heavyweights and women’s lightweights also competed – the Hoyas crossed the line more than three seconds ahead of Rutgers and nearly six ahead of Delaware.

Georgetown’s second varsity eight continued the first-place trend as the Hoyas edged second-place Rutgers by five seconds. They took second in the third varsity lights race and third in the freshman eight. Every race but the frosh eight was true to the pre-race rankings – the freshmen’s results were an inversion of the three squads’ April 27 rankings.

The men’s heavyweights, meanwhile, lost to heavily favored Yale in the Tony Johnson Cup. George Washington also competed in the varsity eight race, falling to Yale by 0.65 seconds, whereas the Hoyas rode through the finish with a 14-second deficit.

Yale swept all four races. In the second varsity eight, two Eli teams finished ahead of the Georgetown A team, and the B squad could not overcome Yale in the freshman four. The Hoyas did, however, claim second place in the freshman eight with a time of 6:19.8. They trailed Yale by one second and edged GW by nearly seven.

The lightweight women faced somewhat of an upset in their races against MIT, in which various combinations of boat members saw a first-place finish by the MIT novices. The Engineer freshmen, with a time of 7:49.8, bested the Georgetown second varsity eight and the freshman eight in that first race.

Under 5-10 mph winds, the eights then split into fours, and the six-team field was topped by Georgetown second varsity A. Finishing right behind were MIT novice A (four seconds back) and the sole Georgetown novice squad (12 seconds).

Next for all four of Georgetown’s crews are the Eastern Sprints on May 15, followed by the national championship, the IRA Regatta. The entire men’s team and the women’s lightweights will compete in the latter competition, and the men’s lightweights are considered to be a contender for the national title.