WORCESTER, Mass. - Yale's Varsity won the Eastern Sprints for the fifth consecutive year and was awarded the Rowe Cup for best overall team performance, while Penn lightweight crew won its first EARC Sprints Crown since 1976.

The Varsity Eight race determines the Ivy League Championship.
 
Yale and Penn have earned an auto-bid to the IRA National Championships set to take place from May 29-June 2 in Sacramento, Calif.
 
Yale included a five-peat performance in Heavyweight Grand Finals with a convincing wire-to-wire first-place effort. The five straight wins by Yale marked the first time one school has captured that many in succession since Harvard won seven straight from 1964-1970 in the early coaching era of the late Harry Parker.

Yale easily hit the line in first place with a time of 6:16.2, almost two full boat-lengths in front of runner-up Harvard (6:22.0). They were followed by Brown (6:24.8), Princeton (6:28.3), Northeastern (6:29.6), and Boston University (6:24.8).
Yale and Harvard tied for total points in Rowe Cup competition but the Bulldogs took home the hardware based on its victory in the Varsity Heavyweight Grand Final. On the day, Yale crews won 5-of-8 grand finals contested.
 
Penn—from Quinsigamond's sixth lane—blew out to an open-water lead before the race was 500 meters old and they never looked back. In a complete race from start to finish, Penn won the Lightweight Varsity Eights title for the first time since 1976 and just the second time since 1954. The Quakers' winning time was 6:34.753, more than two seconds ahead of second-place Yale and more than three seconds ahead of third-place Navy.
 
 The Second Varsity Eights were seeded sixth but finished third to earn bronze medals, while the Third Varsity Eights were seeded seventh but made the Grand Final and took fifth.
 
Penn's Varsity Eights have now had top-three finishes each of the last three years at Sprints, after finishing third in both 2017 and 2018 and this year's win. The last time the program had back-to-back-to-back top-three finishes at Sprints was 1950 (third), 1951 (first) and 1952 (first).