Men's Heavyweight Crew Falls

Just call it a bad omen.

En route to the 62nd running of the Compton Cup at Princeton, Harvard heavyweight crew had a bit of a problem with the boat trailer--it fell off. Although the varsity and JV shells were uninjured, minimal (but repairable) damage was done to the two freshman shells.

That in itself was not a problem; the freshman borrowed a boat from the Tigers. The problem is that the trailer incident foreshadowed the Harvard heavyweight crew weekend.

The Crimson--coming off an unexpected victory the previous weekend over a top-ranked Brown crew--fell back to earth this weekend on Lake Carnegie in Princeton, N.J.

Princeton--capturing the Cup for only the second time in 34 years--clocked in at 5:37.50, more than two seconds better than Harvard's 5:39.36 MIT placed a distant third, in 5:58.43.

Harvard started the 2000-meter race at a strong clip, building a two seat lead on Princeton (and significantly more on MIT) by the 1000-meter mark.

"We were down four seats off the start, and very gradually came back and established a the two-seat lead," captain Elijah White said. "It was very continuous, and very steady."

"I think our start was very encouraging," senior Ben Hochberg said. "We are not a crew that starts off very fast. We did some work on that, and it seems to have paid off."

The story of the race, however, was not the start but the third 500 meters. In that distance, Princeton went from two seats down to four seats up. Harvard's big boat could not respond to Princeton's power stroking.

"Princeton started to make a move, and we didn't respond as well as we could have," Hochberg said. "There were one or two moves that we couldn't answer or couldn't answer strongly enough."

"Princeton was two lanes over, and we couldn't tell they were down with their move until they had a four-seat lead," White said.

MIT, which has captured the cup only once, barely appeared on the other two crews's radar screens. The Engineers were eating the Crimson and Tiger's wake by the time the first 500 meters were over.

"No one was paying attention to MIT," Hochberg said. "I don't think MIT was much of a factor."

Regardless of final outcome, White Hochberg and company remain upbeat about the crew's prospects at Eastern Championships.

"The end result wasn't what we wanted, but we did race a strong, hard race." Hochberg said.

"The race could have gone either way," White said. "It was very close from the start. We need to make sure close races go our way in the future. We should win close races, and we didn't this weekend."

Lights Triumph

Harvard lightweight crew fared significantly better than its older, heavier counterpart. The Crimson overran a surprisingly fast Navy crew for its 29th Haines Cup on the Severn River in Annapolis Maryland.

Harvard clocked the 2000-meter race in 6:04.53, while the Midshipmen finished a length behind in 6:07.56.

Surprisingly, Navy was faster than Harvard out of the blocks, building a two-seat lead in the first 15 strokes of the race. Harvard, however, was faster when it really counted--in the middle 1000 meters of the race.

"We actually lost a little bit off the start," stroke Matt Emans said. "They had a quicker start than we did."

"We were able to move better at our base rhythm, especially in the second 500 meters," coxswain and captain Chris Schulte said.

Harvard (4-0) quickly closed the gap and began building its three-seat lead.

"By the time we settle to our base cadence, we were back with them," Emans said. "After that, it was a slow and steady move away."

Navy tried three times to push back into Harvard's lead throughout the course of the race, but each time the Crimson would redouble its efforts.

"Each time, we fought them off and took a few more seats," Emans said.

"Our base cadence has been our bread-and butter so far this season," Schulte said. "We've been able to move well. "It's worked for us in all of our races so far."

The lightweights have a huge race coming up next weekend--the 73rd running of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton race. Princeton and Yale--ranked number one and number three, respectively--are probably the most formidable opponents the Crimson has faced so far.

"Since Dartmouth, we have been keying towards [next weekend]," Emans said. "We got beaten by Princeton at IRA's [the National Championship], and we have been waiting for revenge since."

"It should basically be a preview of the National Championship," Schulte said. "Princeton tries to make a big move at the 1000-meter mark. Yale's base cadence is very high. Both Crews are very fast. We are looking for this race to be our toughest competition of the year."