Neither summer layoffs nor the departures of key seniors were enough to slow the Harvard and Radcliffe heavyweight crew teams, which returned to their winning ways on Sunday afternoon with victories in the Stonehurst Capital Invitational Regatta, co-hosted by the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology on the Genesee River.

Both squads entered the regatta as defending champions, the Crimson having won three straight titles and the Black and White four.

“At Stonehurst, we definitely go in feeling like if we don’t win we’ve failed,” senior Jordan Sagalowsky said.

Harvard

Shaking off the rust accumulated during the summer months, the Crimson used the race primarily to regain last June’s national championship form.

“Obviously it’s exciting to race again,” Sagalowsky said. “I’d say the hardest thing is getting a good feeling at a high cadence.”

Though the squad has practiced regularly, race conditions—complete with the rush of adrenaline and the pressure of competition with other boats—have been lacking.

“It’s very different from anything we can accomplish in practice,” Sagalowsky said. “We try to do time trials in practice, but its always a different feeling to be in competition. Especially in the first few competitions, each one is better than the last one.

On the water, Harvard struggled slightly in its 5000-meter head race, unable to maintain as clean and smooth a stroke as it had hoped and struggling to tame a tail wind nipping at its back.

“Last year we were a very good head-wind crew,” Sagalowsky said. “We had a little bit of trouble finding a good rhythm in the morning. We had some trouble carrying the rhythm all the way through the boat.”

But the definition of trouble for a Crimson crew differs greatly from a problem for any other boat. Harvard finished nearly 30 seconds ahead of the next closest boat.

And the afternoon sprint was even better. The Crimson crew rebounded well from its relative early morning struggles, leaving its opponents in its wake.

“We were happy we did a good job of marching through the boat next to us,” Sagalowsky said.

Harvard practices side by side racing much more than it does head racing.

“We race so much, we have such a deep program,” senior coxswain Oberst said. “The boathouse is full of four very strong boats...I think the afternoon [sprint] race is where we want to be.”