WEST WINDSOR, N.J. -- The Yale varsity lightweights won their heat Friday at Mercer Lake to advance to the national championship Grand Final on Sunday. Yale left the stakeboat with hard-charging Princeton and Cornell crews essentially level, and the Elis were starting to gain some traction on the field when the referee stopped the race in a controversial decision regarding equipment breakage within the M.I.T. shell. 

The crews returned to the stakeboats and in the re-row Yale had another good start and used that to secure a spot in Sunday's Grand Final. Cornell finished 2.456 seconds back, with Princeton taking the final qualifying spot, 8.572 seconds off the pace. 

Georgetown, Columbia, and Navy qualified for the varsity Grand Final in the other heat. 

The Yale second varsity raced their preliminary heat at 8:00 a.m. to determine lanes for Sunday's Grand Final in a 7-boat field.  The Bulldogs remained tightly with the pack off the start but were eventually dropped by the leaders and finished off the pace. Yale remains in the fight and will race the 2V Grand Final as the no. 6 seed from lane 6 on Sunday at 9:40 a.m.

The Yale varsity coxed four raced their time trial, in which they finished 11th, at 11:20 a.m.  Later in the afternoon, the Bulldogs entered the stakeboats for their semi-final at 4:30 p.m. They were in contention of the final spot to advance to the grand final for the majority of the race but fell just short to finish fourth with a time of 6:27.262.

Below is the schedule for Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, June 4
11:00 a.m. Men's Lightweight Four B Final

Sunday, June 5
9:40 a.m. Men's Lightweight Second Eight Grand Final
10:30 a.m. Men's Lightweight Eight Grand Final 

All races will be livestreamed here and live results are available here.