Men's Heavies Coast Past River Rival Huskies

With exams behind them, Northeastern’s rowers had an entire week to do nothing but cram for one last test.

And they still failed miserably.

The No. 1 Harvard men’s heavyweight crew, on the other hand, had all the answers for the No. 5 Huskies and the difficult conditions on the Charles River Saturday morning, browbeating its opponent to retain the Charlie Smith Cup and hometown bragging rights for yet another year.

“I think we surprised ourselves with just how fast we went,” said junior seven-seat Aaron Holzapfel of the Crimson’s 13.8-second win, Harvard’s largest margin of victory in the schools’ 25-race history. “We knew that we had a lot of speed, but we hadn’t quite reached our potential in previous races.”

Anticipating that Northeastern (3-1)—rejuvenated after seven class-free days—would mount a sustained challenge, the Crimson (6-0) planned to pre-emptively counter with an aggressive start punctuated by a smooth transition into its base cadence, 36.5 strokes per minute. But, at least immediately, not all went precisely according to plan.

The Huskies capitalized on a solid start to lead after the first 25 strokes before a fierce headwind and the resultant choppy waters cut Harvard’s base cadence to approximately 35.

“We’ve been having trouble getting off the start at a high rate and keeping that high rate,” Holzapfel said. “After 25 strokes at a high rate, we settle into our base cadence, but we’ve been dropping down too low.”

On this occasion, however, the decline was due purely to the winds, and when Northeastern similarly slowed following its initial outburst, the Crimson immediately erased the briefly-held lead. Walking back through the Huskies’ boat, Harvard established a firm advantage by the 500-meter mark before breaking with Northeastern’s boat for good.

“There’s a big advantage that we practice on that part of the river all the time,” Holzapfel said. “We’re used to those types of conditions. It wasn’t something we hadn’t seen before.”

Though the Huskies also call the Charles home, the portion of the river on which they train does not lend itself to training in strong headwinds like those which made regatta conditions so difficult.

“It happened that this time with the strong wind there were big waves and big chop,” Holzapfel said. “It makes it easy to hit the water with your blade and send your boat from side to side.”

But the well-acclimated Crimson eight suffered little on account of the stormy seas, stretching its lead to nearly three lengths over the next 500 meters, an edge maintained despite a sprint call from the Northeastern coxswain.

“I think they took a bit of a flutter at about 1,000 meters, but it was a move of desperation,” said senior six-seat Cameron Winklevoss. “And they couldn’t sustain it. They basically just moved as fast as us for about 20 strokes.”

But Harvard successfully responded, negating the Huskies’ inroads into its lead before continuing to pull away, crossing the line in 6:11.4. Northeastern timed in at 6:25.2, four lengths behind.

The second varsity, first freshman and second freshman/fourth varsity boats won in equally convincing fashion.

Its undefeated dual-meet season a thing of the past, the Crimson now prepares for Eastern Sprints, contested on May 16 in Worcester, where the clean sheet thus far will matter little and this one particular win over a crosstown rival even less.

“I don’t feel like we can draw too many conclusions from this weekend,” said senior two-seat Jordan Sagalowsky. “We can say Northeastern wasn’t fast and that’s about all we can say about that.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.