Crimson Picks Up Wins At Home, On Road

Continuing this season’s trend of consistent excellence, both Harvard men’s heavyweight and lightweight crew teams represented themselves well this weekend at home and afield. Both crews established themselves early on in the season as teams to beat, and have not given up their position.

This Saturday, the two crews once again demonstrated their competitive spirit, fighting respectively to maintain the heavyweight Compton Cup and the lightweight Haines Cup, honors they won last year. Both crews held onto their prizes, keeping them in Newell Boathouse for the second year in a row.



Harvard’s varsity eight rowed a particularly strong race on Lake Carnegie in Princeton, N.J., beating MIT and Princeton by an impressive margin of more than eight seconds. The Crimson gained a boat-length lead in the first 500 meters of the race, and steadily increased its margins throughout the next 1500 meters, leaving Princeton and MIT to fight it out in its wake.

“We settled into a good rhythm, and we were able to move away from MIT and Princeton,” sophomore coxswain Chris Kingston said. “We were expecting Princeton to give us a fast race, but we were able to move ahead early.”

The first varsity’s smooth victory was due in part to a newly found stability within the first boat lineup, with a rower returning from a recent injury. The ease of Harvard’s victory suggests that the Crimson has found a stride that will allow it to move ahead in future races.

Coming in second place for the first time since 1975 was the Engineers’ varsity eight, beating Princeton’s entry by a close margin of one second.

The following races were also strong performances and indicative of the overall strength of Harvard’s heavyweight program.

“[The morning was] very encouraging, and one that gave us an opportunity to show our depth,” captain Teddy Schreck said.

The second varsity eight finished a respectable second to the Tigers, while both the third varsity and fourth varsity beat Princeton’s third varsity eight.

The freshmen bested the Tigers by a margin of three seconds and MIT by a margin of 15 seconds.

Harvard proved itself to be uniformly competitive, rowing well across the board. Next weekend, the heavyweights face Navy and Penn in Annapolis, Md. to compete for the Adams Cup.

Back at home, the lightweights faced more rigorous competition. Navy and Harvard met on the blustery Charles with a prevailing headwind, but the Crimson and the Midshipmen remained unfazed by the conditions.

“The headwind slowed the times down a little, but we’re used to rowing in tough conditions and so is Navy,” captain Jeff Overington said. “It didn’t affect our rowing at all.”

The two crews found themselves closely matched in every race.

“Navy’s always very fast, so we expected them to be a strong competitor [in the varsity races],” Overington said.

The highly competitive first varsity race set the tone for the following contests. Navy and Harvard’s varsity eights raced down the course neck and neck until the 1000-meter mark, where the Crimson was able to gain a slight lead. The Midshipmen inched back in the following 1000 meters, but was unable to adequately respond to Harvard’s competitive edge and slight lead.

Such a close race could almost have gone either way, but the Crimson finished the race with a one-second margin of victory, demonstrating a superior tenacity against its competition.

Harvard’s second and third varsity eights also had extremely close, competitive races. The boats placed second in their respective races by a margin of less than two seconds. In contrast, the first novice eight had an outstanding performance, beating Navy’s opposing boat by 12 seconds.

After this weekend’s performance, the Crimson can look forward to next weekend’s upcoming race against Princeton and Yale with confidence. Harvard is currently ranked second in the lightweight league while Princeton holds first, but among such strong crews, rankings are easily transcended.

“It’s a good race for us to work off,” sophomore Andrew Trott said. “It also gave us a good example of what high pressure racing will be like for us.”

Harvard continues to easily produce win after win with every weekend, but keeps its ultimate goal in mind.

“We don’t pay too much attention to rankings, but we know that Yale and Princeton are fast,” Overington said. “It’s great to win these dual races, but the really important races are the championships.”