Rowers Take Second Place

Both the Radcliffe heavyweight and lightweight crews finished in the runner-up position this weekend, after facing top-ranked national competition early in the season. While the No. 10 heavyweight crew battled difficult conditions against No. 7 Princeton, Cornell, and Bucknell for the Class of 1975 Cup, the No. 4 lightweight team advanced to the Grand Finals of the Knecht Cup only to finish behind the top-ranked Wisconsin Badgers.

With the Class of 1975 Cup on the line, the heavyweights took to New Jersey looking for a win, but Princeton showcased its signature speed and swept both varsity eight races.

Despite managing to keep close with the Tigers, the Black and White’s varsity eight came up nearly seven seconds short against the Tigers, who took the race with a finishing time of 7:23.2.

“Unfortunately, Princeton got a bit of a jump in the first 500 [meters] and we were two lanes away from them,” senior Liz Demers said. “So we weren’t able to be racing right next to them. After the first 500, we were able to hold for middle 1000.”

The second varsity eight was able to give the Tigers a run for their money, as both crews managed to leave Cornell and Bucknell in their wake and entered the last 500 meters of the race even with one another. That was when Princeton’s speed got the better of Radcliffe, and the Tigers, finishing at 7:32.2, defeated the Black and White by 2.9 seconds.

“They’re known for fast starts in the race, so really our goal for the past week was working on trying to stay with them in the first quarter of the race,” Demers said. “They’re known to get out very quickly. Each year, facing them early in the season is always a challenge, because they’re always ready to race.

In the five races that featured the two varsity eights, the varsity fours, and the novice eight, Radcliffe claimed only one victory when the Varsity Four B prevailed with a time of 8:07.4. Both Cornell and Bucknell bested the Black and White in the novice eight.

The varsity four A finished at 8:10.4, nearly six seconds behind Princeton and four seconds behind Bucknell.

“We’re still working on lineups and getting good training in, but it’s hardly a predictor of the rest of the season,” Demers said. “I think we have a lot of speed to find and gain, and I think we can do that in the next few weeks.”

On Saturday, facing some of the best competition in the country, the No. 4 Radcliffe lightweight crew team finished in second place at the Knecht Cup on the Cooper River in Camden, New Jersey.

Both the first and second varsity boats qualified for the Grand Final race, which also featured three boats from Wisconsin and one from Lafayette.

The Black and White’s runner-up finish marks the second straight year that Radcliffe has fallen just short of bringing the Cup back to Cambridge.

The Wisconsin A boat crossed the finish line at 7:41.5, 10 seconds ahead of the Black and White’s A boat, which clocked in at 7:51.7. Radcliffe’s second varsity finished at 8:26.0, 5.9 seconds better than the Wisconsin C squad but 20.2 seconds behind the Badgers’ B boat.

“I think it was a great weekend to be able to race more than one team,” junior Medha Khandelwal said. “To get into a situation where you have six boats across and line up and go through the whole process, it was a great chance to race Wisconsin, which is a perennial national champion this early in this season.”

During the first round of racing, the Black and White exhibited all the speed and athleticism needed to compete against top-ranked Wisconsin.

“It’s like facing any other top team,” Khandelwal said. “They have proven themselves to be great races. Racing them is a great opportunity to rise to the occasion.”

Though Radcliffe finished in fifth place in the lightweight four heat, each of the Black and White’s eights qualified for the Grand Final with a sub-eight minute performance, putting Radcliffe in elite company. Only the Badgers’ A boat achieved a similar performance by winning the first qualifying heat over the Black and White’s B boat with a finishing time of 7:42.6.

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