Harvard Men’s Lightweight Crew Keeps Winning, Sweeps MIT and Navy

The Harvard men’s lightweight crew team continued its dominant run this weekend as it swept Navy and MIT to win the Haines Cup and Paulovich Trophy.

Three races took place Saturday morning on the Severn River in Annapolis, Md. First up for the Crimson was the 3V, coxed by freshman Hailey Hicks. Harvard’s boat beat out three different Navy crews to win its race by just over two seconds with a time of 6:15.8.

This race served as a bit of a “back-to-action” moment for the 3V, as its crew split into two separate boats of four last week during a messy win over Dartmouth. The 3V serves as a relatively weak spot for the Crimson so far this season, as it bears the team’s sole loss. That defeat came against Penn at the Franklin Cup, Harvard’s spring opener event. With last week’s narrow win and a little more comfort this week, the 3V is showing steady progression that the Crimson fans hope to see continue as the team pushes through its spring campaign.

Notably, some of the student-athletes who rowed last week in the smaller boats did not race this week, such as freshman Kevin Wu and sophomore Ryan Brewington. Meanwhile, junior Rupert Chen, who did not row against Dartmouth, returned to stroke the 3V.

The 2V, coxed as always by senior Sylvie Spitz, looked even more comfortable in the water this week, cruising to an 11-second win against the Navy and MIT boats, posting a time of 6:00.5. The 2V has been in incredible form all season, with the boat yet to lose a race and winning its race last week by 14 seconds on the Charles.

The 2V had one change in lineup this week, with senior Zarett Mills rowing his first race of the year in place of freshman Grant Atkinson, who bowed the 3V this week, in the third seat. Head coach Billy Boyce seems to be experimenting a lot with the third seat. So far, a different rower has occupied that seat on the 2V for every race this season.

It’s normal for Coach Boyce to slide things around and try different combinations of rowers. Boyce will certainly be looking to cement his lineups and rotations as the team enters the middle of the season over the next few races.

The V8, coxed by freshman Nathalie Gregg, faced a slightly tighter race than the 2V but still posted a time of 5:51 flat on its way to a nearly six-second victory over boats from MIT and Navy. This race was a bit closer than last week’s eight-second win over Dartmouth, but still looked relatively comfortable for the V8.

The V8 race surely drew heavy attention from collegiate rowing fans all over the country, as the Harvard boat entered this week ranked first in the country by the IRCA coaches poll, while the MIT boat entered ranked second. This showdown race between the two schools from Cambridge was undoubtedly the headliner of the week, and Crimson is happy to have beaten its next-door neighbor on its way to a sweep.

The Engineers entered the week with 81 points in the coaches poll, significantly trailing Harvard’s 100 but sitting just above third-ranked Penn, which had 77. With the Quakers winning the Wood-Hammond Trophy in Princeton this weekend and MIT leaving Annapolis without winning a race, there will surely be movement in the coaches’ poll standings.

Since Penn downed the Tigers, who were also close to the Engineers with 75 points in last week’s poll, MIT certainly knew that the winner in New Jersey would overtake it in the rankings should it fail to put up a good showing against Harvard and Navy.

While it’s unlikely that the coaches’ poll is in the front of the teams’ minds this early in the season, Harvard has nevertheless shown so far that it is the team to beat in Division I lightweight rowing. Despite all of the teams’ success to start the year, many Crimson fans saw this coming. Harvard is the defending back-to-back National Champions and has proven year in and year out that it is the best collegiate lightweight program in the country.

The team will hope to continue its successful 2026 campaign next Saturday, April 25, as the Crimson races on the Charles against Princeton and Yale for the Vogel and Goldthwait Cups.

—Staff writer Asher M. Meron can be reached at [email protected].