Top-Ranked M. Lightweight Crew Wins Third-Straight Goldthwait Cup

Before the weather turned sour Saturday afternoon, Princeton and Yale showed up on the Charles River with every intention of raining on Harvard’s parade.

The Tigers and the Bulldogs brought their best to the Goldthwait Cup races, the annual Harvard, Princeton, and Yale men’s lightweight regatta.

But the Crimson lightweights brought their best as well. And when you’re No. 1 in the country, your best is not too bad.

Harvard’s first and second varsity wins secured the team’s third consecutive Goldthwait Cup, one of the most contested prizes in lightweight rowing.

“This grudge match was going on way, way back in the day,” said junior second varsity five-seat Alex Phillips. “These three schools have been duking it out since before rowing was rowing.”

The first varsity eight overcame Yale’s four-seat advantage at 1,000 meters, stalled the Bulldogs’ push at the midway mark and pulled even in the third 500. Once Harvard reached the final 500-meter marker, the Crimson powered its way to a 2.4 second victory.

“Yale jumped us off the line and their [stroke] rating was really high,” varsity three-seat Griffin Schroeder said. “They were up on us by several seats quite early in the race.”

Princeton fell off the pace early, but the Bulldogs shot out of the start at a higher rating than the Crimson and bolted to a quick half-boat advantage.

“We were almost done with our warmup, and [seven-seat] Mike Kummer leans to me and says, ‘Last year, they came out of the blocks smoking and we have to be ready for that,’” varsity stroke Dan Reid said.

As has been the case all season, the Crimson’s base cadence erased that early spurt.

In the first 250 meters of the second 500, Harvard halted any Yale attempt to add to the lead. Harvard held the Yale boat close without much adjustment to the stroke rating.

“Right after the 500-meter mark, they took another move and took the rating up,” Schroeder said. “They moved away a little bit more and then we held them again—held that margin, and then we started walking back on them.”

The Crimson calmly entered the Mass. Ave. Bridge at a slight disadvantage, with Yale still up half a length and Princeton almost a length behind both boats. Then at 1,200 meters down, the Crimson grew tired of the first real deficit it had faced since an opening weekend loss to Georgetown.

And that’s when the No. 1 crew in the country made a No. 1-type of move.

“We killed their move,” Schroeder said. “They were moving on us, then we killed their move, and then we walked on them.”

The Crimson stole the momentum from a solid Yale crew during the third 500, exchanging a four-seat deficit for a two-seat advantage in just over 300 meters. Harvard’s move took all of 25 or 30 strokes, but the Crimson’s steady base cadence proved too strong for the Bulldogs over the final 750 meters of the race.

“It was a legitimately tough race,” Schroeder said of the battle with No. 5 Yale. “The length [of the race] was just too long. If it was a fifteen hundred-meter race, it might have been different.”

Instead, Harvard used that final 500 meters to its advantage. Last weekend against Navy, the Crimson already held a commanding boat-length lead on the Midshipmen heading into the final 500. Saturday, that margin was only two seats—less than one second separated Harvard and the fall of its one-week old No. 1 ranking.

For the varsity lightweights, two seats were not enough. With spectators at the finish urging the Crimson to the line, Harvard blitzed Yale with a quick four-seat spurt in the final 500 and crossed the line seven seats in front of the Bulldogs. The Crimson crossed in 5:49.0, Yale followed in 5:51.4, and Princeton finished in 5:59.9.

“[Yale] surprised us,” Schroeder said. “They had an awesome race. It was a confidence-builder to know that we weren’t rattled by being down, but stayed in our boat and did our best to walk through.”

The outcome differed greatly from the lightweights’ second dual race of the season, when Harvard forfeited an early lead to Georgetown and never made it up, falling to the Hoyas by just over one second. But in the last dual race of the season, the Crimson showed the resilience necessary for the upcoming Eastern Sprint and IRA regattas.

The second varsity fought a similar battle on Saturday morning, but it was Princeton who kept pace with the Crimson for the race’s first 1,000 meters. The Tigers jumped out of the start and took an early two-seat advantage over both Yale and Harvard, and the Bulldogs also maintained a slight advantage over the Crimson. For the first 200 meters, all three boats were locked in a push for first place, with all three bow balls pushing forward in a fight for position. By 300 meters down, both Yale and Princeton sat four seats up on Harvard.

Then Harvard clawed its way back to a stalemate with Yale by the 500-meter mark.

“[Coxswain] Felix [Yu] did a great job keeping us composed and keeping us focused on the job at hand,” Phillips said. “We caught Yale, [and] then Felix shifted our focus to Princeton and we tried to put the pressure on them.”

The Tigers maintained a high rating throughout the first 750 meters, trying to shake Harvard’s undefeated second varsity. But the Crimson, which had overcome a boat-length deficit to Navy the week before, was not to be rattled.

Harvard kept the stroke rating constant and picked up some speed heading into the 1,000-meter mark. The Crimson overcame the early six-seat deficit by the 800-meter mark, and Harvard countered the Tigers’ surge at the Mass. Ave. Bridge to take a two-seat advantage.

“The whole point was to stay cool, stay relaxed, trust each other, and know we could get it done,” Phillips said.

The Harvard boat made contact with Princeton and took off in the third 500 meters of the race, adding four more seats to a two-seat lead. The Crimson tore through the last 500 with a strong final sprint and finished with an open-water advantage over Princeton.

The second varsity crossed the line in 5:59.5 and Princeton trailed in 6:03.6. After a fine first 500 meters, Yale fell slightly off the pace and finished in 6:06.0.

The victory gave the second varsity its second consecutive undefeated dual season and preserved both boats’ No. 1 rankings going into the Eastern Sprints on May 15. The third varsity, first freshman, and varsity four all fell on Saturday, but the two varsity victories earned the Crimson the Goldthwait Cup and the Vogel Cup points trophy.

It marked the second straight week both varsity crews overcame early deficits to post cup-clinching victories.

“It speaks particular volumes about crews when they can come from behind,” Phillips said. “It takes a great amount of confidence off of the line.”

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.