Rookies Dominate Field at Princeton’s Carnegie Chase

CORRECTION APPENDED

During the 2009 spring season, one of the most compelling stories about Harvard men’s lightweight crew was the dominance of its freshman boat. The Crimson rookies blew by the competition week in and week out.

With the tale of their predecessors’ success in mind, this year’s freshmen seem poised to write a sequel. Yesterday, the lightweight boats took to the water at the Carnegie Chase in Princeton, N.J., and the rookies crossed the finish line in the freshman eight race with a resounding victory.

Harvard finished in 13:58.086, beating second-place Navy by over 16 seconds.

“This is the second year in a row that we won the freshman eight,” lightweight captain Martin Eiermann said. “We knew from practice that they have a very fast boat. It’s a pretty motivated bunch.”

Because last year’s freshmen also won their event at the Carnegie Chase, this year’s boat was granted a favorable start ahead of Princeton. The rookies rowed well throughout the race but really began to put distance between them and their opponents in the third sector.

“We felt really good,” freshman rower Eric Schultzer said. “The class last year was really strong. I think there’s definitely a lot of pressure on us based on the quality of work they did.”

Novice coxswain Alex Sall was especially impressive, directing the freshman eight to victory in his first race with the boat.

“He did a great job,” Schultzer said.

While the freshmen cruised to victory, Harvard’s varsity rowers saw varying degrees of success, with the top boats excelling but finding first place elusive.

In the varsity eight race, the Crimson 1V finished in 13:23.708 but failed to catch up with a speedy Princeton boat that came in at 13:19.685 and had to settle for second.

“We knew that Princeton was going to be very fast after Head of the Charles,” Eiermann said. “We knew that [how Harvard stacked up against the Tigers] would be the benchmark to really measure how we would do.”

The Crimson struggled with the wind early on, but found a rhythm and rowed to a promising, if not ideal, finish.

“Being four seconds behind Princeton is not where we’d like to end up in the spring but for now it was a solid race,” Eiermann said.

The Harvard second varsity eight was not as pleased with its performance. The 2V came in at 14:07.466 to take a 17th-place finish, crossing the line just ahead of the Crimson 3V.

“The 2V wasn’t quite satisfied with their performance,” Eiermann said. “They hoped to do a little better, and I know they have more speed than they showed here.”

Eiermann acknowledged that the boat lineups had been shuffled, as the Harvard coaches are experimenting with different mixes before finalizing their boats for the spring season. He was encouraged by the Crimson’s performance across the board, especially since the 2V and 3V boats rowed well compared to their counterparts from other schools.

“This is definitely kind of a basis from which to work,” Eiermann said. “It shows that the team is very deep.”

After the varsity eight race in the morning, Harvard split up its top two boats and placed them in the varsity four event. The Crimson’s A and B boats flourished, taking second and fifth, respectively, while the C and D came in 14th and 16th.

The A boat barely missed out on a win, finishing just over four tenths of a second behind Princeton—who once again was Harvard’s spoiler—at 14:48.045. The B boat crossed the line at 15:08.470.

The Crimson now looks forward to the Tail of the Charles Regatta on Nov. 21, its final competition before the grueling winter training session begins.

“The spirits are pretty high,” Eiermann said. “We can leave this weekend with our heads held high.”

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION

An earlier version of the Oct. 26 sports article "Rookies Dominate Field at Princeton’s Carnegie Chase" incorrectly stated that the Harvard men's lightweight crew's freshman boat came up short against Princeton last April 25. In fact, Yale's was the only team to place ahead of the boat in the 2009 spring season.