No. 4 Women's Heavies Stumble at NCAAs

It seemed an odd place for this team to be for many reasons.

Radcliffe heavyweight crew in the petite finals?

For one, the muscular Black and White rowers have not often been associated with anything “petite.”

Two, this was the No. 4 ranked crew nationally, a crew that was peaking at the right time of the year, that had just finished third as a team at Eastern Sprints and that was defending its national championship.

Yet the Radcliffe heavyweight crew failed to qualify a single boat for the Grand Finals and dropped to 10th place at the NCAA Championships on Lake Natoma in Rancho Cordova, Calif., held May 28-30.

The first eight came in second in its petite final, the second eight registered a third place finish in the petite final and the four crossed the line sixth in its petite final.

Brown took the overall team championship, and the 1V Grand Final, with 70 points. Yale (58 points) finished behind the Bears in team standings and also in the first eight Grand Final, and Michigan (52 points) followed the Bulldogs in both the point race and first eight race.

Headed into nationals, it appeared that the Black and White was primed to make a run. After a bit of an inconsistent year, the 1V looked to have gained stability and power with a late-season lineup shuffle. A convincing win over BU, and then an impressive showing at the Eastern Sprints that included victories over Brown and Yale and a one-second defeat by Princeton not only elevated Radcliffe to the No. 4 spot in national polls, but also led to serious talk of defending the NCAA title.

Those hopes evaporated on Saturday afternoon, when the 1V came in fifth in its semifinal race. The top three went to the Grand Final; the bottom three, to the petite final.

“Certainly our final place is disappointing relative to what we went out there hoping and planning to do,” co-captain and 1V six-seat Lis Lambert said. “And there is no getting around the fact that we did not race to our potential in the early races of the weekend.”

Earlier in the afternoon, the 2V finished fourth and 4V finished fifth in their respective repechage heats, from which only the top two advanced to the Grand Final.

The depth of this year’s field was undoubtedly the strongest it has ever been.

“It was really impressive to see heat after heat filled with really strong and fast crews,” freshman spare Katie Golden said.

Besides the rival crews, the Black and White had other less conspicuous opponents.

“In addition to feeling disappointed I also feel some frustration, because it did seem that circumstances conspired against us a bit,” Lambert said. “Due to the timing of exams this year, we arrived in California a day late and people had to sit exams out there in the hotel, which made settling in and focusing a big challenge.”

In the petite finals, though, the 1V was able to put a solid row together, and finished 0.6 seconds behind Washington in 6:38.40, which wound up being the final day of racing’s sixth fastest time.

“It is really hard to feel the kind of disappointment we felt not making it into the Grand Final but go out there and race our hardest anyway,” Lambert said. “In a way, I am more proud of our race this past Sunday than I am of our championship race last year.

“We didn’t go out in a blaze of glory this year like we did last year, but I think that this year’s race demanded far more of us in terms of commitment and psychological focus. When you’ve got the kind of momentum and energy that we had heading into that race last year, it becomes easier somehow—there’s still tremendous physical effort involved, but the momentum takes over somehow and you just hang on and go with it.”

Those strokes were the last in the Black and White for Radcliffe’s seniors.

“I know that we raced our absolute fastest race on Sunday, and I’m really proud of us,” Lambert added. “It was a good race to have be my last.”

—Staff writer J. Patrick Coyne can be reached at coyne@fas.harvard.edu.