Top Heavyweight Four Excels on Home Waters

Radcliffe crew raced its way to another fine weekend at the Foot of the Charles on Saturday.

The Black and White’s top performances came from the heavyweight novice eight, which won its race, and the heavyweight A four, which finished second.

The lightweights boated four fours, a novice eight, and a third varsity eight, while the heavyweights raced four fours and two novice eights, as well as a third varsity eight. The squads took on boats from Brown, Dartmouth, Northeastern, Syracuse, Rhode Island, Rutgers, Buffalo, Boston University, Massachusetts, Boston College, and MIT.

Brown barely nudged out Radcliffe to claim first place in the varsity fours race. The Bears finished in a time of 13:39.5, three seconds ahead of the Black and White’s time of 13:42.5.

“The first four were incredible: we were within three seconds of Brown,” heavyweight co-captain Rachel Rauh said. “We did exactly what we wanted to do. Obviously, we would have preferred to be three seconds faster than Brown rather than slower, but we had a great race. We were happy with it. This bodes well for the upcoming year.”

Rauh coxed the A four, which featured rowers co-captain Olivia Coffey, sophomore Shelly Pearson, and juniors Liz Soutter and Christina McClintock, who is also a Crimson sports editor.

Radcliffe’s B four finished 11th with a time of 14:16.9, while the C and D fours finished 26th and 39th, respectively, out of the 49 total boats in the varsity four competition.

“Today gives us confidence that we will be in the mix in the Ivy League this spring, and that we have the capacity to compete,” Rauh said.

The Black and White’s first lightweight four had the highest finish of any lightweight crew and placed 23rd overall. Radcliffe’s other lightweight entries placed 33rd and 42nd.

The Foot of Charles race also demonstrated a bright future for the Black and White novices.

The first novice boat won its event, and its time of 13:09 was the fastest time posted by any crew in the regatta. Second-place Dartmouth finished 14.1 seconds behind Radcliffe.

“Overall it was a pretty strong performance,” Rauh said. “The novice races are usually the highlight of the Foot of the Charles. This is the freshmen’s opportunity to shine. Our freshmen won—they had a great race. Our program was thrilled about that.”

The second novice heavyweights finished in 15th place out of the 23 competing boats. The lightweight boat finished 11th.

“The freshmen did a great job today,” Rauh added. “They have been mixed in with the varsity most of the fall, but this was their one and only race as a first novice group. It was their one moment to shine, and they really stepped up.”

Last weekend at the Green Monster Regatta, the Black and White finished second as a team to the Big Green, a memory the athletes had in the back of their minds heading into this weekend’s race.

“The loss motivated us to really go after it in the Foot of the Charles,” freshman heavyweight Miruna Ioan said. “We did not know what to expect since Dartmouth defeated us last weekend. It was such a great surprise to see that we had beaten them by so much.”

The Regatta not only served as an opportunity for retribution but also as a final chance for the team to hone its skills heading into winter.

“We were very set on winning our race because we started off first,” Ioan said. “We didn’t have any boats to pass or any boats ahead of us, so we were focused on pushing as far away from the other boats as possible.”

“We thought of each stroke as an accumulation of all our hard work we’ve done so far this season,” she added. “We wanted to show everyone what we had accomplished in the past two months.”

Each Radcliffe boat defeated the corresponding Dartmouth boat in all three races.

In the third varsity eight event, the Black and White’s heavyweight entry finished sixth, while the lightweight boat finished eighth.

“I think everyone gave the best they could,” Ioan said. “Everyone’s fall season ended well. I know some of the boats from other universities had good races as well. Overall, the Foot of the Charles was a great race for everyone.”