Top-Seeded Lights Take Fifth in Surprise Finish

WORCESTER—Yesterday just didn’t go the Harvard lightweight men’s way.

Although four out of five of boats made their way into the afternoon’s Grand Finals, only the second freshmen boat took a first-place finish, with the varsity taking a particularly surprising pummelling after a pre-event first-place seeding, which remained intact through the morning heats.

However, in the final the varsity only placed fifth with a time of 5:43.455 to Dartmouth’s winning 5:38.894. Cornell, Princeton, and Navy finished 2-3-4.

“In the first 1000 Cornell was winning and we were pretty close to them—three or four seats,” coxswain Mark Adomanis said. “Compared to how it went in our dual race against them it was much tighter. And for the first 1000 there was no more than half a length between the six boats.”

But then the Crimson began to steadily drop behind the rest of the field.

“We were able to hold it somewhat level for a while,” three-seat Brian Aldrich said. “It felt like a good piece. But then every time you looked over the rest of the field was just moving on us. We didn’t know what was happening—it felt strong.”

In the end Dartmouth beat Cornell to the post in the last few strokes, while Harvard battled not to come last.

The second varsity also placed fifth in its final, after a very close win by Navy over Cornell in 5:43.760.

“In the heats we rowed second,” two-seat Dan Rasmussen said. “We got off to a fine start [in the final], we just kind of got left behind a little bit. I didn’t think it was our best race.”

The Crimson finished with an eventual time of 5:49.612. Yale took the last podium spot, and Princeton fourth place, with Columbia in sixth.

The third varsity wound up sixth in its final, with a time of 6:31.502, a good 20 seconds behind fifth-place Princeton and even further from victorious Navy’s 5:58.724.

The freshman eight went into the Petite Final, the second-tier final, after the morning’s heats, taking third place behind Georgetown and Penn in 6:00.9.

The second freshman boat was the biggest success story of the day, with a two-second win over silver medalist Navy in 6:04.86.

Yale placed third, Cornell fourth, and Dartmouth fifth.

The somewhat lackluster overall results did not deter the Harvard lightweights, who entered the event with a 6-1 record on its successful spring season, from seeking big things at IRAs in a couple of weeks.

“We recognize that we didn’t perform up to people’s expectation of us, but, even more importantly, what we expected of ourselves,” said Adomanis, who is also a Crimson editorial editor. “We’re not happy with it, and we’re not going to make any excuses. This is not how we want to be remembered, not how we want to finish our season.”

“We have one more chance to get it right,” he added. “We’re not going to let this determine our identity as a crew; we know we can do better.”

“We can use this as motivation,” Aldrich said, “and try to pick up speed as much as we can before IRAs.”

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.