The scene prior to the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) Sprints Championships was remarkably similar to last year’s, with the Harvard men’s heavyweight crew riding high after earning the top seed on the strength of an undefeated season. But the scene afterwards was far preferable for the Crimson this year.

The Harvard first varsity eight exacted revenge on Wisconsin for last year’s defeat, capturing its first Eastern Sprints crown since 1990—the 22nd in program history—and the Ivy League title.

“The varsity hasn’t won Sprints in a long time,” senior Mike Blomquist said. “Because the competition now is so good, winning was sweet.”

The Crimson crews combined to win the Rowe Cup as well, tallying 40 points—three more than the Badgers, who were seen by many as the pre-race favorite.

“Wisconsin returned six or seven guys to their boat from last year and we returned three from a very strong graduating class,” Blomquist said. “We didn’t really know where we’d stand.”

It didn’t take very long to find out. Building off a clean start, the first varsity seized the lead early on and never looked back.

“We had a really strong start, which we’ve had all season,” junior stroke Kip McDaniel said. “We were up two or three seats after the first 25 strokes.”

Fighting off strong headwinds, Harvard maintained a brisk base pace, slowly inching forward and away from the main pack despite a relatively unfavorable lane assignment.

Wisconsin was assigned to a lane where the wind had less of an impact.

“They had the favored lane because of winds,” McDaniel said. “But it didn’t bother us.”

Little did on the afternoon, as the Crimson slowly built a commanding lead through a consistent exercise of power that trumped the Badgers’.

“Our base pace was really strong,” McDaniel said. “We were moving all the time. We sprinted a bit at the end, but most of the margin was just our base speed.”

Building a one-length lead by the midway point, Harvard fed on the energy of its “engine room”.

“The middle guys on the boat are just much stronger this year,” McDaniel said. “I think this year we both rowed well and were really powerful. We added Aaron Holzapfel and Malcolm Howard, the two sophomores on the boat. And they’re just exceptionally strong—just really strong racers and really strong, powerful kids.”

Continuing to pull away over the last 1000 meters, the first varsity boat crossed the line in 6:04.1 during the Grand Finals, besting Wisconsin by 4.74 seconds with half a boat length of open water between the two squads—the same margin by which the second varsity boat won.

But that squad hadn’t benefited from the smooth sailing early on that the first boat enjoyed.

Rather, the second eight found itself at the back of the pack as its race began to take on its early form.

“Off the starting line, Princeton jumped on us, as well as Cornell and Wisco,” sophomore coxswain Kit Randolph said. “We were surprised by that, especially Princeton.”

As the race neared the 1400-meter mark, the order of the field remained unchanged, with Princeton ahead of Cornell and Wisconsin and the Crimson not far behind.

But with only 600 meters remaining, Harvard made its move.

“Our coxswain made the call around 600 [meters] to get Wisco, and once we locked onto them we thought it was possible to move onto Princeton,” captain Mike Skey said. “It was everyone gearing up and ready to go. Once everyone thought it was possible, everyone went for it.”

Despite the distance remaining and the difficult weather conditions, the Crimson slowly began to erase the Tigers’ open-water lead.

“We row pretty well in the headwind,” Skey said. “I like to think of the Harvard crews as having the headwind be our forte. That’s what we train in in the [Charles River] basin.”

With 500 meters to go, that training was certainly paying off. Though not yet in the lead, the Crimson was on the verge of making the once-daunting gap disappear entirely.“The remarkable thing is that everyone knew we could,” Skey said. “Everyone knew that we were the faster crew, and that the result coming into the last 500 wasn’t the way it should be. I’m proud of the guys in my boat that everyone dug down and did it and knew they could. It made the victory that much sweeter.”

The common mind set was one of the few things guaranteed to be in harmony, as the rowers had not shared much practice time because of injuries—including heart surgery for junior Jonathan Lehe less than a month ago.

Rowing at 40 strokes per minute, the Crimson boat was primarily running on fumes as it neared the finish line, but exhaustion was not going to stop the momentum swing.

“You’re so tired at that point,” Skey said. “It’s basically adrenaline. Your mental capacity comes in as a factor.”

Adrenaline proved to be enough.

Coming all the way back from an open-water deficit, Harvard outdistanced Princeton by a boat length and a half, finishing in 6:22.4—4.1 seconds ahead of the Tigers.

Rounding out the races factoring into the Rowe Cup, the first freshman boat took second, falling to Princeton in 6:20.32—6.21 seconds off the pace.

The Harvard heavyweights return to the water on May 28, when the Crimson competes for the national title at the IRA Championships in Camden, N.J. for the first time in more than a decade.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.