Crimson Powers Forward Again

After two weeks, the Harvard varsity heavyweights are back in familiar territory—across the finish line first.

They endured a shocking loss to Brown and a home defeat at the hands of No. 1 Princeton, but the heavyweights punished Navy and Penn in a lopsided road victory Saturday in Annapolis.

A dominant performance in all five races—each Harvard entry won by open water—secured the Crimson’s seventh consecutive Adams Cup win on a day of poor racing weather and choppy water in Maryland.

“The water was just horrendous,” second varsity coxswain Amanda Caplan said. “The plan was to have the varsity race at 6:30 and the JV race at seven, and we get up at 4:30 or five to get to the course to find that the races were delayed. Even at that early hour the water was horrible.”

An hour-plus delay and a race course change later, the Crimson seemed unaffected by the road trip and the adverse conditions. Both varsity entries sped out to open-water leads before the 1000-meter mark and spent the latter 1000 adding more open water to an already one-sided race.

“Once you get through a crew, you want to push harder just to continually widen that margin,” said sophomore varsity four-seat Joe Medioli. “The focus is always on widening the gap—getting open water and sitting is a serious problem because it gives the other crews hope.”

Hope, at least for Penn and Navy, ran out by the 750-meter mark on Saturday. Harvard trailed early and minimally, surrendering just one or two seats to the host Midshipmen off the start.

By the 300-meter mark, Penn stood back several seats and Navy held strong, maintaining contact with the Crimson varsity. A speedy start and a strong settle kept the Midshipmen in contention throughout most of the first half of the race.

“Navy fought really hard,” varsity seven-seat Andrew Boston said. “They were pushing really hard. Navy kids are just tough as balls. They don’t give up.”

But at 400 meters down, the Harvard varsity took the two-boat battle it had waged with Navy and made it a one-boat show for the rest of the course.

A strong move to end the first 500 meters gave the Crimson the Navy bow ball and later an open-water lead at 750 meters down, an advantage Harvard would only increase as the three crews crossed the midway mark.

Navy hung in second and Penn made up ground to make a push for second place. The Crimson, however, turned Saturday morning into a time trial against itself.

“It’s obviously nice when you get up early on a crew, because you can focus on getting away from them and not getting frantic,” Medioli said. “But you have to push really hard in the beginning to have that luxury.”

The Harvard heavyweights pushed through the line uncontested in a time of 6:08.9, with the Navy and Penn boats still jockeying for second place in the final 500 meters. The Midshipmen outlasted Penn for second place, finishing in 6:19.5 to the Quakers’ 6:20.9.

The second varsity’s row was similarly one-sided, continuing the boat’s season-long trend of racing to near-open-water leads before the 500-meter mark. Choppy conditions and a fierce headwind did little to stop a boat that hasn’t had contact with a crew beyond the 1000 all season long.

Harvard claimed a slim seat advantage off of the high 20 to start the race, but the Crimson fought for five more seats in the next 15 strokes to sit on Navy’s three-seat as the boats settled into base cadence.

A move at 500 meters down gave the Crimson second varsity an open water lead, one it would build upon in the final 1500 meters.

“I really had to turn it over to the guys to open up the margin, to never sit,” second varsity coxswain Amanda Caplan said. “They’re really good at doing that, and these guys are just out here to pull hard.”

For the third straight weekend, the Harvard second varsity raced the second 1000 meters alone. The Crimson plowed through the finish line in 6:19.9. Navy finished almost four boat lengths back in 6:39.8, yet another victim of Harvard’s fast starts and punishing base cadence.

“We didn’t want to sit on our training,” Caplan said. “We want to improve it and we want to get that much better. We don’t think that anything is set in stone, and we just want to get more aggressive every week.”

Harvard’s freshman eights rounded out the weekend with two huge open water wins—10 seconds in the first freshman race and 12 in the second freshman race—to right the Crimson’s ship after a disappointing showing against Princeton a week before.

“Hopefully, that’s the beginning of our streak for the rest of the season,” Medioli said. “It’s tough to lose any race, even in practice, so to have a win under your belt is that more heartening and it will be much easier to get out and race again.”

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