Harvard Tops Ivies After N.Y. Weekend

In a weekend packed with five trophies, four competitions, three divisions, and two different states, the Crimson took to the water with only one goal in mind: smooth sailing.

Coming off two ninth-place finishes last week, the Harvard sailing team put in strong performances in its recent slate of competitions, recording a first-place finish to claim its second win of the season and climbing to the top of the Ivy League once all was said and done.

71ST OWEN & MOSBACHER-KNAPP TROPHIES

Competing at Kings Point, N.Y., against the likes of Ancient Eight rivals Yale and Princeton, the Crimson turned in outstanding performances when the pressure was highest.

Senior skipper Alan Palmer and his crew, sophomore Alan Byrne and senior Meghan Wareham, set Harvard up for victory, finishing first in two of its 16 races and top three in seven to win the A-division.

Not to be outdone, the B-division squad, skippered by senior Teddy Himler alongside crew Wareham and freshman Sarah Pierson, also dominated its competition, recording 12 top-three finishes, including two wins, to take first-place, edging the rival Bulldogs by three points.

Together, the Crimson teams ended the day at 118 points—66 from Palmer’s crew and 52 from Himler’s—winning the whole regatta by 23 points over Yale’s141, and clinching the top spot in the Ivy League.

“I think it’s definitely going to be a good boost for morale,” sophomore Alma Lafler said. “We’ve been getting some pretty good results back and this validates what we feel. We’re a strong team this season.”

82ND BOSTON DINGHY CLUB CUP

Back on home waters, Harvard hosted the 82nd Boston Dinghy Cup on a cold and windy weekend on the Charles River.

But the home-course advantage proved to matter little, as the neighboring Terriers from Boston University got off to a great start in the A-division race, recording a low 78 points, and leaving the 13th-placed Crimson in their wake.

Still, the Harvard sailors managed to fight back with a first-place finish in the B-division. Lafler and junior Brendan Kopp won six of their 18 races on the weekend, putting up a strong showing, which ended in an 84-point finish for the Crimson.

“I think we just had a lot of good communication in our boat,” Lafler said. “The conditions were tough, and the wind made it pretty easy to capsize, but we kept talking to one another and adjusting the rate shifts.”

But in the C-division races, things just didn’t seem to go Harvard’s way. Only cracking the top three once in 18 races, sophomore Jason Michas and junior William White, a Crimson news editor, finished 14th with a score of 179, dropping the team’s overall rank to seventh-place on the day.

B.U. BRIDGE INVITATIONAL

Not too far away, the Crimson also participated in the Boston University Bridge Invitational, bracing wind up to 21 knots on familiar territory.

In the A-division, sophomore pair Nick Waldo and Jinyan Zang failed to finish any higher than fourth in their 14 races, tallying 123 points and ninth place out of 15 teams.

For the freshman combo of Ames Lyman and Alice Kenney, the B-races yielded more of the same.

Despite finishing consistently in the top half of the standings, Lyman and Kenney never broke into the top three spots, closing the day in sixth place with 100 points.

Overall, Harvard finished eighth on the day.

32ND WOMEN’S DUPLIN TROPHY

In its last competition of the weekend, the women’s team trekked over to Tufts’ Duplin Trophy regatta, in a contest that pitted the Crimson against opponents from across the East Coast. Harvard went 10-11 on the day in the team-racing event, good enough for a fourth place finish out of seven in the regatta.

“We were really just trying to get everyone up to speed this weekend,” junior Alex Jumper said. “We’ve got a pretty wide range of skill levels in team-racing, and this gave us a chance to give it some more practice in a more structured environment.”