Radcliffe Captures Bronze at IRAs

For the second time in a month, the Radcliffe women’s lightweight crew performed well but stood on the podium looking up to the powerhouse Wisconsin varsity eight.

After losing by six seconds to the Badgers at Eastern (EAWRC) Sprints on May 15, the Black and White took third at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) championships. Wisconsin won the meet with open water almost eight seconds ahead of the Radcliffe lightweights with a time of 6:46.51, and Georgetown nabbed second in 6:50.12.

“I was happy with our season, [but] it was kind of disappointing to have a third-place finish to cap it off,” senior Sarah Bates said. “But there were definitely some high points to the season—it’s just too bad that we didn’t have a better race for our last race.”

For the Black and White, it was a season in which it followed the eventual national champions right from the beginning until the final championship race. With the Badgers coming off of a championship in the 2005 season, they were the team to beat all season long and finished ahead of the Radcliffe and Georgetown crews when it counted.

“They usually gain a lot of speed throughout the season—I wasn’t surprised that they got a lot faster between the Knecht Cup and Sprints,” Bates said. “We’ve seen them do that in past years as well.”

Earlier on in the competition, the Black and White had outraced the Hoyas in their first heat, but a strong final race from Georgetown gave the Hoyas a five-second lead on Radcliffe as the boats passed the finish.

Princeton, who is traditionally strong, finished behind both crews in fourth.

“It depends from year to year,” Bates said. “[The Tigers] in the past have been very close to us, and we’ve traded races with them.

“This year, Georgetown has risen up as a powerful crew, and we’ve had some tight races with them as well, ending with a loss to them at the IRAs.”

“Actually, IRAs was kind of a shocker for us because we’d always beatenGeorgetown in the past,” junior Rachel Orler said.

Wisconsin started in a worse position than the Black and White when the Badgers finished third in the opening heat and had to go through another qualifying round—which the Badgers won—in order to be able to race for the championship.

“I don’t think you can deny that we were looking to get the title,” Orler said. “It’s kind of hard when you know you have to take that No. 1 slot and the racing just doesn’t work out in your favor on that day. You always hope that you’ve found more speed than the other [crew] since the last meet, and it doesn’t always work out that way.”

A year ago, Radcliffe also took third at the season’s most important meet, though the second-place finisher was Princeton.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Caleb W. Peiffer contributed to the reporting of this story.