Black & White Finish Second at Ivies

Despite winning none of their races outright, the Radcliffe heavyweight crews came away with a load of hardware from the Ivy League Championships this weekend.

At the Cooper River Park in Camden, N.J., the Black and White took on its Ancient Eight foes and took second place in team points behind Princeton, falling just shy of the team trophy by seven points.

“I thought that as a team, we had a really phenomenal performance, and we had almost every boat medal, which was really, really fantastic,” said Mary Maginnis, first seat of the 1V boat. “One of our goals this season was to win a team title at the Ivy League Championships, and although we fell short of that by [seven] points, we really exhibited the depth of our team by how well we performed and how well we stacked up.”

Radcliffe entered six boats in the championship—the 1V, 2V, 3V, V4 “A”, “B”, and “C” boats—and all made the final races following the heats in the morning. Although the Black and White couldn’t defend its conference championship, five of the six boats medaled in their races, leading to a cumulative 74 points for Radcliffe on the weekend.

“Overall, it was a really successful day of racing for us. I think one of the things that a lot of people maybe don’t understand is that on a national level, the Ivy League in women’s rowing is one of the most competitive conferences in the country,” Radcliffe coach Liz O’Leary said. “The Ivy Championship is obviously a super competitive racing situation on all levels, no matter which boat you’re looking at. Any boat you look at, you’re going to find a really tight, competitive field.”

After coming in third in a heat with four crews, the first varsity eight boat shaved over 10 seconds off of its original time in the final race of the day, rowing the 2000-meter grand final race in 6:41.108. Yale edged the Black and White’s top boat by five seconds while the Tigers grabbed the gold and the team trophy with the win.

“Going into the final race, it was not clear who was going to win the points trophy,” O’Leary said. “Princeton was probably favored, but between Yale and us and Brown, it was really tight, so our performance in the 1V was good enough to give us second place in the team trophy, and it’s a whole team as part of that effort, and that’s what I really love about that.”

Radcliffe bested Princeton near the beginning of the season in its dual meet with the Tigers and Cornell, but Maginnis notes that a number of factors played in the reversal of results.

“I know that they’ve switched around their lineup a bit, and Princeton’s a crew that you just always have to respect, and they have such a strong 1V and team in general, so I’m not sure what caused the difference in margin to be so dramatic,” Maginnis said. “I’m positive it was them finding some speed of their own and us struggling with injury and lineup changes, but I do think they had a lot of speed.”

The 2V8 race saw a tightly contested race for the gold between the Black and White and Brown, with Brown taking the edge by two seconds with a time of 6:41.366. Radcliffe’s second varsity eight also saw an improvement from the morning, where that crew also came in third in its heat after adjusting to lineup changes.

“[The 2V8] hadn’t raced in that lineup, but I thought it got stronger and faster over the course of the season, so in fact their second-place finish was a really great race,” O’Leary said. “Brown sort of came out of nowhere, but it was a very tight race all the way down, so that was terrific.”

The first varsity four race, the third race outside of the first two varsity eight races to count towards NCAA qualifications, showcased the only Black and White team not to medal, as the crew came in fourth out of the six boats in the final.

The V4 “B” boat placed second with a time of 7:58.694, while both the V4 “C” boat and the third varsity eight boat took bronze medals. Even though the team fell just short of the points trophy, O’Leary still commends her crews on successful performances across the board in preparation for NCAA championships at the end of May.

“All around, you go out there, you go after the win, but you look at the performance of the team as a whole, it was probably one of the best team performances ever, actually,” O’Leary said.

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samanthalin@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @linsamnity.