The Charlie Smith Cup served as the Crimson's final tune-up before the Eastern Sprints, which will take place May 21 on Worcester's Lake Quinsigamond.

"We expected that we were going to beat Northeastern [Saturday], but we just hope that what we've been working for last month and this month will help us to win the Eastern Sprints," Djunic said.

Harvard's junior varsity and freshman teams met with similar success Saturday. The Crimson's JV team beat the Huskies by finishing at 5:47.8, and the Harvard freshmen edged out Northeastern with a time of 5:51.3.

Heavyweight women

The Radcliffe women (9-2) also took advantage of the favorable conditions Saturday morning and won the Allen-DeWolfe Cup for the sixth straight year, closing out its most successful dual season in a decade.

"It was a really strong race for us," Guerette said. "It showed that we have matured as a team and that we've gained confidence in each other over the year."

Radcliffe's time of 6:17.5 destroyed the previous course record of 6:27.2, which had been set by Princeton in 1993. By setting the course record, the Black-and-White managed to soundly defeat a challenging Boston University (10-4) contingent.

"The fact that we won by such a huge margin shows that we were really going for boat speed instead of concentrating on just beating the other teams," Guerette said. "We put it all out on the line on Saturday, and it just showed to us that rankings don't matter and that previous races don't matter. We just need to race our best every time."