Radcliffe Freefall Continues

The morning after Harvard weathered the lyrical assault of Busta Rhymes and his Flipmode Squad, the No. 5 Radcliffe heavyweight crew fought a more strenuous contest against No. 9 Yale—and the results were not so sweet to the ears of Harvard students.

The Black and White suffered a painful loss Saturday morning against the Bulldogs in the first varsity eight race at the Case Cup.

Radcliffe—trailing from the start—maintained a challenge the entire race, but nevertheless lost by just under five seconds. The Bulldogs crossed the line at 6:05.8, while the defending national champion Black and White clocked in at 6:10.7.

Radcliffe emerged from a staggered start and held with Yale initially—but going into the curve on the Lake Housatonic course, the Black and White was unable to make up the stagger and pull up with the Bulldogs. At the final pole Yale claimed a win by about half a length of open water.

The loss to the Bulldogs dealt a blow to Radcliffe’s championship hopes. Though the duals record ultimately matters little in the awarding of the national title, coming off close losses to top rivals No. 4 Brown and No. 3 Princeton earlier this season—both by less than three seconds—Radcliffe has not managed so far to best any of its toughest opposition and does not appear to stack up as well against its competition.

Saturday’s loss represented the worst drubbing the Black and White has suffered this year, exceeding the previous highest margin—a loss to Princeton by 2.8 seconds on April 10—by more than two seconds.

Radcliffe has just over a month to improve its position in order to challenge those top rivals at the NCAA Championsips, which begin May 27 in Sarcramento, Calif.

Despite the substantial victory for Bulldogs, co-captain Lis Lambert is not distraught about the future.

“I think we can definitely make this up,” Lambert said. “We had a week of really hard practices. We’ve made some dramatic improvements this week. It was disappointing that it didn’t work out on Saturday.”

The other Black and White boats fared better in their races on Saturday.

In the varsity fours Radcliffe (6:53.1) edged its New Haven rival (6:53.9) in a close contest by just 0.8 seconds and in a varsity four “B” competition, the Black and White (6:18.2) defeated Yale (6:22.7) more easily.

Continuing a run of success this season in supporting the 1V, the Radcliffe second varsity eight won its contest amid controversy. In that race, the Bulldogs again had the staggered lead but failed to follow its lane, missing two buoys to cross the curve instead of following it. The Black and White was awarded victory as Yale was disqualified. Despite the iniquitous shortcut, the Bulldogs’ mark of 6:20.7 topped Radcliffe’s strong effort (6:21.4) by less that a second.

“We had the outside lane,” junior Gretchen Weingarth said. “The stagger is about two feet, so we had a two foot lead to start the race. We were even with Yale going into the turn, and they took about three-fourths of a boat length on the turn, which was more than we thought was possible.”

Weingarth said that had the race been fairly contested, “It would have been a decisive margin in our favor.”

The novice eight race was a sweeping victory for the Black and White (6:49.8), with the Bulldogs (6:57.9) succumbing by 7.9 seconds, suggesting years of Radcliffe domination to come—but right now, the heavyweight crew is focused on this year.

Those performances—along with the success of its lightweight counterparts, who defeated No. 1 Princeton yesterday morning—lend encouragement and the pressure of friendly competition to the struggling varsity eight.

“It definitely gives us motivation,” said Lambert, speaking of the varsity lightweights. “It’s exciting to be with a strong team like that. Last year, when were both really successful, we fed off each other. We get a lot of energy from them.”

The Black and White will have a chance to regroup next weekend, as the crew tussles for bragging rights on the Charles with No. 15 Boston University and MIT.

“The top six teams make the [NCAA] grand finals,” Lambert notes. “If we can get back to what we were working on—aggressive drive and rowing together—we can put together a pretty good race.”