Harvard Crews Both Nab Second at IRA Championships

Throughout the season, the Harvard lightweights and heavyweights have traded headlines and thrilling victories. When both 1Vs and 2Vs capped off undefeated seasons with Sprints titles, the only question was which squad's results were more successful.

And so it was somewhat fitting that the lightweights and heavyweights, twins all season, would earn the same result in Camden, N.J. Both 1Vs earned silver medals at the IRA National Championships. Three more medals gave the heavyweights a second-place finish as a team, behind the University of Washington. A win by lightweight 4+, composed of 2V rowers and a 3V coxswain, gave the Crimson its only gold medal of the day.

LIGHTWEIGHTS

Utterly exhausted, the lightweight crews of Harvard and Yale waited while the fates of their seasons were decided by race officials and a photo.

Finally, the results came: the Crimson's quest for a national championship came 0.022 seconds too short, with Yale's 5:39.904 just edging Harvard's 5:39.926 by a bow ball to give the Bulldogs the title.

"You have to give Yale credit for getting the job done," Crimson coach Charley Butt said. "I think that was a real classic in the sporting world."

It's become something of a rowing cliche to say that the 1000-meter mark starts a "whole new race", but that was what happened in this year's finals. Though the Bulldogs had taken an early lead, and the Crimson had responded to take a small lead midway through the first 1000, the top three boats—Harvard, Dartmouth, and Yale—were all approximately even at 700, and though the Big Green reached the 1000-meter mark first, its lead at that point was fairly small.

The third 500, on the other hand, was all Dartmouth's, and the Big Green were able to earn a lead of about a length over the chasing Crimson and Bulldogs at one point. All season long, it had been Harvard taking command of races in the third 500, but this time the Crimson would need a tremendous final 500 to fight its way back into contention—and the rowers were able to dig deep to find more speed in the home stretch.

"We were outside of our pattern," Butt said. "We rallied ... and in that respect it was courageous and shows just tons of character. They train to win, they race to win, they do what it takes."

Dartmouth's late lead, which it held into the final 30 strokes, forced both Harvard and Yale to sprint early. The Crimson began its sprint with about 400 meters remaining. On video it looked as if the Bulldogs might have passed Harvard in the final five strokes, but when the crews passed through the finish line at approximately the same time, it wasn't entirely clear which team had won the national championship. A photo revealed Yale to have earned the narrow victory.

While it wasn't the result the Crimson was hoping for, the race's outcome epitomized the determination and resilience that has characterized this crew all season long.

"I'm very proud of the oarsmen," Butt said. "Very proud of the way they handled the loss, I'm proud that there was no giving in in them ... they were able to come as close to winning as possible ... they showed boatloads of character."

Dartmouth finished third in 5:41.860. Cornell took fourth, and Princeton—the defending national champion and former national No. 1—took fifth, while Columbia finished sixth.

While the 1V's season came to a disappointing conclusion, the lightweight 4+ earned a thrilling IRA victory. The all-sophomore lineup, composed of second varsity eight rowers Florian Mayr, Alex Newell, Stu Taylor, and Nick Gates and coxswain Alex Saal, who had coxed the 3V throughout the season, defeated the second-place Tigers by over four seconds. The win capped off an undefeated season for Mayr, Newell, Taylor, and Gates, as the lightweight 2V went unbeaten in the dual season and took home Eastern Sprints Gold.

"They really commanded the race," Butt said. "They rowed to their ability and did a sound job on the rest of the field."

HEAVYWEIGHTS

All season long, Harvard and Washington have appeared invincible, dominating their respective coasts at all levels. At the IRAs, something had to give.

But while Saturday was all Huskies, the Crimson may have started to chip away at Washington's reputation of invincibility with the 1V's impressive semifinal victory.

The semifinal race had been delayed around 10 minutes after Harvard broke its skeg and needed its boatman, Joe Shea, to put on a new one.

"We got blown into a buoy," said junior 1V three seat Mike DiSanto. "It took our skeg right off. Luckily our boatman was there."

But it turned out that a broken skeg wasn't the only challenge the Crimson would face that day. At the 500-meter mark, Harvard stood in fourth place behind the Huskies, Wisconsin, and Stanford. Had the Crimson failed to move, it would've been relegated to the petite final. Instead, Harvard rallied in impressive fashion to win the race in what would prove to be the fastest time posted by any eight all weekend.

"I think we had a lot of energy," DiSanto said. "We were planning to race to win ... at whatever cost. For whatever reason, it wasn't our best start. In the first 800 meters or so we were a bit rocky. Our coxswain [senior Chris Kingston] called a big 20, and we kind of just found our rhythm ... Every 100 meters, we were taking a seat [on Washington]. With about 500 meters to go, we raised the rate and went right through them."

It marked the first time the Huskies 1V had lost all season.

"That was a huge confidence boost for me and I think for everyone," DiSanto said. "Washington is portrayed as being untouchable, the 'greatest team ever'. It's good to beat them."

But while the Huskies may have been vulnerable in Friday's semifinals, they were able to "finish", as their shirts said, on Saturday. Washington won the 1V, 2V, V4, and Open Four races, while finishing second to Cal in the first race.

But the Crimson was also impressive, with Harvard's 1V and 2V both earning silver medals, and the 1F and Open Four taking bronze. The Crimson's varsity four finished second in the third level final.

"It was pretty outstanding," DiSanto said. "According to [coach] Harry [Parker], that's the most medals Harvard's ever won."

While the varsity four did not earn a medal, its 0.3-second victory over Cal gave the Crimson an early lead over the Golden Bears in team standings.

Harvard's open four was the next Crimson boat to race. The Huskies, the Crimson, and the Badgers quickly established themselves as the top three crews in the race, but Washington was able to take an early lead that it would never relinquish.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin and Harvard trading leads until the 750 mark, but the Badgers' move from the 750 to the half-way point gave it a margin it would hold to the finish line. Wisconsin was able to respond to the Crimson's pushes from that point on, but Harvard was also able to hold off a strong push by Navy, which finished fourth.

Although the Crimson had been aiming for silver, the bronze medal was particularly impressive given that the boat had only practiced together five times before racing on account of Harvard-Yale.

The freshman eight followed suit with another bronze medal. This time, it was the Golden Bears who dominated, with the Huskies and the Crimson dueling for second. Washington's sprint gave it the silver medal, with Harvard finishing half a second off the Huskies's pace to take bronze.

But the Crimson's best two results came in its final two races, with both the 1V and 2V earning silver medals behind Washington.

While the Huskies were able to take an early lead, Harvard earned an open water lead over the rest of the field early in the race.

And the Crimson threatened to catch Washington with a late push that began with 600 meters to go and climaxed in a ferocious sprint, but the Huskies were able to hold onto a 1.5-second victory.

The premier event of the regatta, the 1V Grand Final, was arguably the best race of the weekend.

Cal, the 2010 champion and No. 2 seed, took an early lead, but it was Brown that mounted the biggest early push as it had the lead at the 500 mark. The Bears had been seeded sixth going into the weekend, and with nothing to lose in the grand final, Brown raced a courageous race that made the faster crews earn their margins.

But Washington was able to take control in the second 500, and it would on for a 2.7 second win.

While Harvard wasn't able to catch the Huskies, it was able to win a three-crew duel for second place. The Crimson edged Cal by 0.1 seconds for the silver medal, while the Golden Bears edged out the Badgers by 0.6 seconds for the final medal. With the silver in the 1V race, Harvard topped Cal by 11 points for a second-place team finish.

"It was a good race," DiSanto said. "I don't think there's anything more we could've done. It's a really weird feeling. I think we raced as hard as we could've ... this was one of our best efforts, and we still didn't win. At the same time, there's no more work we could've done."

DiSanto said that the team will use the loss to Washington as motivation next year.

"Sometimes you have to lose to know how much winning means to you," he said. "We're going to capitalize on this. We're going to remember the feeling of losing."