Last spring the Harvard lightweight crew journeyed to Princeton for the Eastern Sprints and for the second consecutive year the Crimson rowed home with all the honors, sweeping the varsity, J.V., and freshman races. This year, expect more of the same.
Last year's varsity boat did encounter some nautical competition from the midshipmen of Annapolis, in the form of a man overboard loss on the Severn River and a good scare from Navy at the Sprints. But by and large John Higginson's first boat easily motored through its opposition with a crew of sophomores and juniors.
And although national team member Lief Soderberg decided to hang up his oar for this year and starboard oarsman Mike Loucks has moved up to the heavyweight ranks, Higginson's eight will still be the boat to beat, as it kicks off its season today against Columbia and Rutgers.
The two vacancies have easily been filled by the oars of Todd Howard (a varsity rower returning from a year off), and Gil Welch, who has graduated from the J.V. boat into the six seat of the varsity.
"The boat has looked real good this week," captain Ned Reynolds said yesterday. "We'll be faster than last year mainly because we have an experienced seven man [Howard].
"There was some concern that there wouldn't be any incentive what with all the seniors," he said. "But that just hasn't been so."
So while the varsity boat has maintained a fairly even keel as far as its makeup is concerned, the J.V. eight has undergone a furious battle of seat racing. The result of the shell shuffling is a second boat of nine new faces, the nucleus of which has come from last season's yardling boat which cakewalked to its Sprints triumph.
Joining the sophomore contingent in today's race on the Harlem River will be senior Andy Quigley and juniors John Crocker and Phil Lowry. The J.V. crew will have its oars full against the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers who were just edged out in last year's Sprints by the Crimson.
Today's varsity race does look to be particularly tough. Rutgers lost to Penn by half a length last week and the Columbia lightweights are still recovering from the tragic death of one of their oarsmen who drowned this winter after a shell was swamped.
In the freshman ranks, first-year coach Greg Stone, the bowman of last year's heavyweight national champion boat, is faced with a longstanding tradition to uphold. The frosh lights have not lost a race since time immemorial, but Stone is not overly awed by his task.
"It's a challenging pressure, and I like it," he said. "We're not as big as the crews of recent years and as a result we're not as strong, but we row fairly well and are aggressive so we should win some races."
The third varsity boat will not make the trip to Columbia today but will face a Coast Guard crew on the Charles this morning.
Read more in Sports
Racquetmen Smash Hapless Army, 9-0
