Harvard Begins Spring Season with Commanding Pair of Wins

In the 2009 season opener for the Radcliffe lightweight crew team, the Black and White managed to prevail in two out of three races against Holy Cross and Smith College at Lake Quinsigamond yesterday.

“It was really great to get a first race under our belt as we prepare for Georgetown next week,” captain Rebekah Kharrazi said. “Today, we raced heavyweight teams that are actually not in our league, so next week is the real beginning, because we are racing teams in our own league.”

The Varsity Eight and Novice Eight each cruised to victory over their heavyweight rivals while the Second Varsity Eight placed behind Holy Cross.

The Varsity Eight, finishing with a time 6:35, bested the Crusaders by a comfortable four seconds.

The Smith Pioneers finished in third place with a time of 6:43.

Holy Cross won its only race of the day over the Second Varsity Eight, finishing 6.1 seconds ahead of the Black and White with a winning time of 7:23. Radcliffe finished at 7:29.1, and Smith finished third at 7:36.8

The Novice Eight, finishing in 7:22, featured the closest race of the day, topping Smith by a mere one second.

The Crusaders finished third with a time of 7:29.

“We had a definite race plan going into day that we’ve worked on for the past month we’ve been in the water,” sophomore Leah Schwartz said. “We had a lot of composure today.

Having a lot of confidence and keeping our heads in our own boat put us across the finish line first.”

Though the water on the lake was calm, the elements did not make it easy for the rowers.

“The water was flat and there wasn’t too much in terms of current or waves,” Schwartz said. “There was a ton of rain. It started raining from the moment we got off the bus to the moment we got back on, and it was pretty cold.”

Despite the difficult conditions, the Black and White lightweights are excited to finally be racing after an intense pre-season training regime.

“We’ve been training really hard and just came off of spring break,” Kharrazi said. “We trained here over spring break. When everyone empties out of campus, we stick around and train.”

Though the lightweights came close to achieving a clean sweep, the results of their races where a lot closer compared to the team’s blowout margins of victory in 2008.

The last time these crews faced one another, the Black and White swept all three races by at least ten seconds, with the Novice Eight winning by an impressive 18 seconds.

Yesterday marked the first dual-race for new Radcliffe lightweights coach Heather Cartwright and assistant Carrie Morelock.

“We’re extremely excited to have Heather coaching us this year.” Kharrazi said. “She’s coming from downstream at BU and knows the Charles. She’s been around and has a lot of experience and brings a lot to the table.”

Saturday will feature the season opener for the Black and White’s heavyweight team against Brown while the lights will face Georgetown at the Class of 2004 Cup in Washington D.C.

Radcliffe expects the competition to only intensify in the coming weeks.

“Looking forward to future, just having composure isn’t going to be enough and continuing to work hard together as an eight is going to be necessary,” Schwartz said.

—Staff writer Robert T. Hamlin can be reached at rhamlin@fas.harvard.edu.