Crew Competes at EARCs

The Harvard crews traveled to Worchester, Mass., to row in the EARC Sprints this weekend.

The Crimson entered Eastern Sprints with all of its teams ranked in the top seven crews.

The Harvard varsity boat stretched its streak of consecutive appearances in the EARC Grand Final to 38, earning second place behind No. 2 Princeton.

The Crimson finished with a time of 5:34.18 behind Princeton’s time of 5:31.45.

“Princeton moved out on us 800 meters down [the course],” said senior coxswain Jon Cahill. “We moved away from Brown in the second half of the race. We were strong all the way to the sprint.”

“Princeton gradually moved up from the start,” said junior Hugo Mallinson. “They had 6 or 7 seats [on us] at the 1000 [meter mark].”

Harvard pulled ahead of river-rival Northeastern, who was seeded fifth and finished third to upset No. 1 Brown. The toted Bears finished in fourth place with a time of 5:39.59, just behind Northeastern’s 5:39.58.

“It was a tough race,” Mallinson said. “We raced the best race we could have, but we were disappointed with how we placed.”

Both freshman crew s reigned in their divisions with two first place finishes. The top-seeded first boat avenged its only loss to Princeton in the Grand final, with a winning time of 5:35.99 over Princeton’s 5:40.05.

“The freshman crews were great,” Cahill said. “It’s really good for Harvard.”

The second and third varsity boats entered the regatta seeded seventh. The second boat finished second in the Petite Final, and the third varsity placed fifth in the Grand Final.

The lightweight varsity boat extended its streak of appearances in the EARC Grand Final to 56--the same number of years that the Sprints has been raced. No. 2 Harvard placed third in the Grand Final.

The varsity boat pulled a time of 5:43.89, just behind No. 4 Dartmouth’s 5:43.34. Yale won with a time of 5:41.2.

“We had a really good race,” said senior co-captain Rich McCormack. “We attacked it well. Yale took a big lead at the start and had about a length on us. We moved into second place, but Dartmouth nipped us at the finish.”

The second varsity and the first and second freshman boats all placed sixth. The second varsity boat was seeded third going into the weekend, but its time of 5:53.32 pushed it into sixth place.

The third varsity boat won fifth place in the Grand Final.

“As a whole, we didn’t have a great regatta,” McCormack said. “We have things to work on before nationals.”