Men's Crew Concludes Season at Foot of the Charles

This weekend the Harvard men’s crew team competed in its final regatta of the season on its home course here at the Charles River. After a varied performance across the board at the Head of the Charles, the Foot of the Charles Regatta gave the team one last chance to get race experience on the water before the start of winter training and the spring season.

“We love a chance to get behind the handle and race,” sophomore Benjamin Cohen said.

Competing against other Boston-area schools on Sunday, the Crimson had a strong showing in the varsity four race. Harvard’s heavyweight first boat claimed second place with a time of 13:04, beating out Brown’s first boat by just two seconds. Harvard fell to first place Northeastern by six seconds.

Harvard’s fourth boat came in fourth place with a time of 13:09.9, surpassing the Crimson’s fifth boat, which came in fifth with 13:13.4.

There wasn’t a separate race for the lightweight team, so both teams competed together this weekend. The lightweight first boat came in 12th with a time of 13:31.5, less than a second faster than the BU boat that took 13th. Of the 12 Crimson boats that competed, eight boats placed in the top 20.

In the varsity eight race, the Crimson’s freshman boat finished third overall and first for Harvard with a time of 12:38.5. The freshman boat fell to Brown by just 0.4 seconds, and Northeastern again took first place.

Harvard’s heavyweight second boat took eighth place with 13:12.9, while the lightweight second boat and first boat claimed ninth and 10th place, respectively.

Harvard also entered two boats in the novice race, coming in second and third place of the three boats racing, while Boston College claimed first place.

“As a team we didn’t have our best performance, but we have a really deep squad,” Cohen said. “We’re excited as a group to gear up to face Yale and the rest of the league this spring.”

The team will have over four months of training until its first race of the spring season in April.

–Staff writer Jamie Chen can be reached at jamiechen@college.harvard.edu.