Harvard Men’s Heavies Set Course Record in Sweep of Northeastern

The Harvard men’s heavyweight crew team completed its final non-championship race on Tuesday morning as the Crimson hosted the Northeastern Huskies on the Charles. Harvard’s V8 boat made history in the race, logging the fastest time in course history.

The day of racing began with a combined 4V and 5V race, in which the Crimson’s last two boats faced off against the Huskies’ 4V. Harvard’s 4V won the race by the tightest margin this season, beating out Northeastern by less than a second while clocking a time of 5:50.200. Junior Ericka Lai, the 4V cox, recently switched from the lightweight team to join the heavies.

The 5Vs, who raced today for just the second time this season, finished over 30 seconds behind the Huskies and logged a time of 6:22.756.

The V8, coxed by sophomore Natalia Toms, raced second, starting its race just around 8 a.m. EDT. The varsity boat got off to a blistering start and raced its strongest race of the year on the way to breaking a course record. The V8 logged a time of 5:28.212 in the exciting race, which, despite being a new course record, had a margin of only three seconds between the two top boats.

The Harvard boat had one lineup change for this race, with sophomore Sam Woodgate stepping in at the five-seat for senior Leo Bessler, who missed today’s race entirely.

Harvard’s top boat has now recorded two straight wins against relatively strong opponents in a span of just three days. The team entered this Saturday’s race in Philadelphia as the fourth-ranked boat in the country, but now has the potential to climb back into the top three in the IRCA rankings when tomorrow’s coaches poll is released.

The tight turnaround time seemed not to affect the Crimson today as it was able to sweep the Huskies and break a course record.

“It’s a short turnaround time. Each team is very motivated and talented at the same time,” Harvard Head Coach Charley Butt said. “This leadership group we have in the seniors has consistently prepared themselves their entire careers for mornings like this.”

The Crimson’s 2V and 3V finished off the day of racing, with both boats clocking strong wins for the fifth race in a row. Harvard’s two middle boats have been particularly strong all season. The 3V, coxed by freshman Cate Frerichs, remains Harvard’s only undefeated boat and has not lost a regular-season race since 2024.

“They are a very successful bunch of guys,” Coach Butt said about the 3V’s recent success. “I would say it’s a combination of some very skillful people and some guys who are mostly physical in terms of how they row.”

Both of Harvard’s men’s rowing teams now have long breaks until the Eastern Sprints in Worcester, Mass., on May 17. This break is a major change of pace for the heavyweight team, which has rowed weekly since the start of the spring season but now faces a two-week break.

“This particular team has been committed to volume training and the necessary rest to make it work for an extended period of time,” Coach Butt said. “As we get closer to the championships in May, we do begin to peel off volume, and we add more intensity and more focus on that.”

Coach Butt’s plan closely mirrors what his lightweight counterpart, head coach Billy Boyce, told The Crimson last Saturday after his team’s win against Princeton and Yale.

“Once they go into exams, we will begin our taper, where the intensity will stay on, but the volume will decrease,” Boyce explained.

The similar training plans for both teams reflect Harvard’s commitment to the student-athlete balance during final exam season, and the possible influence of Coach Butt’s longtime leadership of the lightweight team. Butt served as the lightweight team’s head coach for 28 years before becoming the heavyweight head coach at the start of the 2013-14 season.

Coach Butt emphasized how dedicated he is to making sure his rowers and coxswains maintain a dual focus during this busy period.

“Over the years, we’ve had prize-winning athletes here on the team. Academics always come first,” said Butt. “If a coach over-emphasized the athletics and the academics suffered, then the team would suffer.”

Coach Butt also shared how the team’s off-season academic preparation pays off during the season.

“The one advantage we have is that by far the majority of our seniors have done senior theses and they’ve been finished,” he said. “It was much easier earlier in the year to finish a thesis off than to prepare for reading period and exams.”

This strategy will particularly pay off for Harvard’s top boat as it looks to tally wins at the final two competitions of the year. So far this season, the Crimson’s V8 has featured fewer than two non-senior oarsmen, emphasizing the team’s reliance on its veteran athletes.

“As you taper the volume back. It dovetails very nicely with the need for time for studying and more time for focusing academically,” Coach Butt said.

Harvard men’s heavyweight rowing will return to the water in Worcester on May 17 for the Eastern Sprints.

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