The Yale men’s heavyweight crew competed last weekend in the Copley Cup race in San Diego, Calif., with a second place finish to Syracuse in the petite final of the Collegiate Varsity Invitational.

The Yale first varsity crew, led by captain Andrew Collard ’09 at seven, Derek Johnson ’11 at stroke, Marcos Carzolio ’11 at bow and Rebecca Burgoyne-Allen ’10 at coxswain came in fourth (6:03.16) to Stanford (5:50.09), Berkeley (5:52.89) and Princeton (6:01.62), missing the qualification for the grand final by 1.54 seconds.

In the petite final, Elis lost to Syracuse by a margin of 3.13 seconds, 6:08.00 to 6:11.13, and beat Oregon State University, Michigan and Purdue. The Long Blue line was in the lead for the first 500 meters of the 2000-meter piece. However, by the half-way mark, Yale slipped to a close second behind Syracuse, 3:02.35 to 3:02.79. The Bulldogs were unable to walk back on Syracuse and finished the third 500 meters 1.27 seconds behind Syracuse. And Syracuse increased their lead further by the finish line.

Collard expressed disappointment at last weekend’s results.

“We obviously need to improve — we are not performing at the level that we want to be,” he said. “We need to start rowing together and try to get a little bit better each day. There is a lot of work that needs to be done.”

He dismissed that Yale had an inherent disadvantage on the California course: “The conditions were not a factor,” he said.

Berkeley ultimately came in first place in the grand final, winning the Copley Cup with a time of 5:51.08, beating defending champion Washington. Harvard came in third, and Stanford, Brown and Princeton rounded out the top six.

The heavyweights will spend the coming week preparing for their only home regatta of the year. Dartmouth comes to the Gilder Boathouse in search of the Olympic Axe on April 11.