“Right there in the middle of the piece, the seniors in our boat stepped up,” Kauble said. “They had wanted this race for a while, and I’m sure there was quite a bit of redemption that all of us were seeking from them.”

“It came to whether or not we were going to fight for the seniors and get them this win,” Kauble added, “and we were happy to be able to do that.”

Navy took up the stroke rating early in the final 500 to counter Harvard’s swelling advantage. Despite the push, the Crimson continued to increase its lead with a powerful sprint, crossing the line in 5:49.3. Navy finished in 5:54.0, with over half a length of open water separating the two crews.

The loss was the Navy varsity’s first since the spring of 2003 and shattered a 14-race winning streak.

“It was a pretty big statement,” Kummer said. “We just stayed calm within our boat and wanted to row well.”

The second varsity race began the same way as did the first and second freshman races, as the Navy boat pulled ahead by close to a boat length in the first 750 meters.

“Navy really tried to shake us off the start,” senior six-seat Nate Rogers said. “That’s sort of one of their trademarks. They had an unusually fast start and they took four seats in the first 20 strokes.”

The undefeated second varsity, arguably Harvard’s strongest in several years, looked vulnerable for the first time.

But the Crimson relied upon a strong, consistent base cadence and shrank the gap during the race’s middle 1,000 meters.

“From 1,250 [meters] left, we began this slow and steady assault,” Rogers said. “You need to stall your opponents’ move before you can start your own. Stop them first, then you go.”

Harvard went, and hard. After the Crimson pulled even with 400 meters to go, the second varsity stole all the momentum away from the Navy crew.

“It was very rewarding to have a crew come from behind from so long in the race,” said second varsity coxswain Felix Yu, “but we knew that we had the piece because we could keep our focus and keep pushing all the way.”

By the time the Crimson reached the finish line, it had matched Navy’s early six-to seven-seat lead. Over the course of the race’s final 1,200 meters, Harvard gained over 12 seats on the Midshipmen—equivalent to a five-second margin.

“At that point, we had the momentum,” Rogers said. “And we all committed to executing the sprint together. It was that moment, and we were like, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s just go.’”

The Crimson finished in 5:54.7—only 0.7 seconds off the time of the Navy first varsity boat—and Navy’s second varsity crossed in 5:57.5.