Novices Prove Expert In Series of Blowouts

Imagine Harvard’s football team blowing out Yale 56-7. Or the basketball team beating up on Princeton 100-20. While such scores will likely only ever exist in our dreams, that has been the pace at which the novice eight boat of the lightweight Radcliffe Black and White has been tearing up the competition this year.

Composed entirely of freshmen, the team is 5-0 on the season, but that statistic is hardly telling of its dominance. While the average margin of victory in a 2,000m race is usually between one and five seconds, the novice eight boat has had victories of 10, 12, 14, 17 and 42 seconds this season against some of the top teams in the nation. In its most recent race last weekend, the boat not only beat the Princeton novice eight, but with a time of 7:02.9 over the 2,000m course, was faster than either the Radcliffe or Princeton varsity boats.

Women’s lightweight crew is broken into four different divisions: Varsity eight, second varsity eight (or JV), varsity four, and novice eight. As the sport is still growing and not all schools have all four boats, only the varsity eight’s record counts toward the end of year IRA National Championship.

For this year’s boat the term “novice eight” is something of a misnomer. For the first time in Radcliffe history, a lightweight boat is composed entirely of recruited athletes.

“Women’s lightweight rowing has never recruited that many people before, maybe two to four recruits per boat,” varsity captain Jennifer Chung, a walk-on herself, said. “[The varsity eight] is probably 40/60 recruited to walk-ons.”

The recruits include freshmen rowers Molly Tarrant, Amanda Pfabe, Lani Skipper, Lizzy Majzoub, Medha Khandelwal, Laura Horton, Grace Hollowell, Laurel Gabard-Durnam, and junior coxswain Brady Mellett. Whereas most of the rowers on the varsity boats have rowed with each other a year of more, the entire novice eight boat, as freshmen, was put together from scratch. That the team could become so dominant in such a short time is quite unusual given that none of the players had ever rowed together in the same boat.

“The crew came together pretty quickly,” coach Eric Catalano said. “It hardly ever happens this way in rowing, but by the end of the first two weeks it was clear this was a pretty special combination.”

Likewise, the players credit their success this year to the ease at which they coalesced as a team and the good relationships they enjoy together.

“We gelled really well as a team,” Khandelwal said. “We spend a lot of time together and we’re really close outside the boathouse.”

“Time together” includes at least 12 hours a week on the water, supplemented by several hours of cardio and weight training.

“Our greatest strength is our work ethic,” Pfabe said. “We’re always putting in that extra effort, that extra mile. We’re extra focused towards achieving our short-term and long-term goals.”

Crew is not only a competition against the other teams, but also a competition against one’s own boat. Like swimming, often the greatest evidence of improvement is not seen in wins and losses, but rather changes in one’s own time.

Last year’s novice eight boat averaged in the 7:50s for the 2,000m course, yet this year’s new team has shaved that down an incredible 50 seconds to consistently finish in the 7:00s.

Ironically, such a dominating performance can often be the undoing of a boat like the novice eight. Since only the times of the varsity eight count towards a championship, the best players from the lower boats are usually brought up to the varsity level.

“Normally things are a lot more fluid, with more movement between boats, as rowers find their place.” Chung said. “What’s great is that they’ve stayed together the whole season after finding something that worked.”

Keeping a boat together for a full season will likely have certain long-term advantages, since the women gain a full year of valuable experience rowing together, while at the same time they do not infringe on the already established lineup of the varsity eight.

“We on the coaching staff have decided that this is the method that is most likely to return the national championship to Radcliffe after a 10-year drought,” Catalano said, “and, we hope, return it to Radcliffe on a regular basis.”

Could this mean the beginning of a dynasty for the Radcliffe Black and White next year? With only one rower on the varsity eight and just two on the second varsity eight graduating, there will only be limited reshuffling among the boats.

However, be it next year or the year after, you can be sure that the rowers of the novice eight will be making headlines in the world of lightweight crew.

“You’re always being pushed by your teammates,” Chung said. “Seeing them get that speed, it definitely raises the bar for everyone else.”