The name and the number had coincided for two full seasons, for two Eastern Sprints championships, and for two IRA national championships.

Harvard. No 1.

But when USRowing released its first national poll on March 30, the Crimson found its name to the right of number three, strange territory for a crew that had won 17 consecutive dual races and captured two straight national titles by open water.

With seven new faces in this year’s varsity boat, it appeared that most of that No. 1 had graduated in 2004. This year, Harvard was supposed to be imperfect. This year, the legend of the Crimson heavyweights should have been mentioned only in the past tense.

That memo, however, never reached Newell Boathouse.

“Everyone’s looking forward rather than back,” varsity stroke Adam Kosmicki said. “Nobody cares about what happened last year except the guys who are gone.”

The heavyweights may have their sights set solely on 2005, but this dual season has played out in much the same fashion as the 2003 and 2004 campaigns.

And that No. 3 didn’t stick around for very long.

In April and May, there was Harvard—and several boat lengths back sat everybody else. The 17-race win streak at season’s opening—the Crimson has not lost a dual race since 2001—swelled to 21 duals after this year’s perfect campaign.

The varsity’s 6.4-second shocker over No. 1 Princeton was the closest margin of the season for Harvard. With a 17-second thrashing of No. 4 Navy on April 23, the Crimson left little doubt about its perennial dual-season dominance.

But with six boats even at the start line on Sunday, any dual-season distinction evaporates at the start command.

“The dual season doesn’t matter much,” Kosmicki said. “The thing about racing in big races like this that there are five other boats instead of just one.”

And each of those five boats has failed to get the best of Harvard, at least in the recent past. If its bright yellow boat weren’t distinctive enough already, the No.1 Crimson heads to Worcester an odds-on favorite in the varsity heavyweight final.

It’s a place the heavyweights have been before—and until the finish line on Sunday, they’re not buying it.

“I’m sure other teams believe we are vulnerable,” captain five-seat Aaron Holzapfel said. “But more than that, they believe they can win it all.”

“The target is not on our back, it’s on the gold medal,” Holzapfel added. “[And] on the winner’s dock.”

Just like last year, that trip to the dock must go through Princeton, which finished second to Harvard at last year’s Eastern Sprints. In an April dual race against the Tigers, the Crimson enjoyed its finest race of the season, overcoming an early six-seat deficit to come away with an emphatic, two-boat-length victory. Harvard, then No. 4, shot to No. 1 in the national polls and hasn’t let up since.

Princeton hasn’t tripped up either, rounding out the dual season with wins over Cornell, Brown, and Yale. The Tigers enter the weekend as the EARC’s No. 2 crew.

“We are expecting Princeton to be our big competition,” said sophomore varsity two-seat Andrew Boston. “But nothing is taken for granted, and we are going to go out and row the fastest and best race we can.”

“They definitely have the most potential of anybody else we raced,” added Kosmicki. “People think the most highly of them, so we have to look out for them more than anybody else.”

Northeastern, which came in 6.9 seconds behind Harvard two weeks ago, sits at a dangerous No. 3.

But the large margins the Crimson enjoyed in dual season—Harvard has yet to see contact with another boat at the finish—will be hard to engineer on Sunday.

“The thing about racing six across, even with a crew that you’re faster than two weeks ago,” Kosmicki said, “when they’re being pushed by someone else they’re going to be closer. If we’re a length up on somebody, but they’re bow ball to bow ball with number three, they’re still going to be going crazy.”

The Harvard second varsity also enters the Sprints races as a defending champion, although the 2005 dual season was an up-and-down one for the Crimson. The second varsity finds itself at No. 6 heading into the weekend and will face a No. 1 Navy crew in the morning heat.

“We’re feeling confident,” said senior second varsity five-seat Will Ulrich. “We’re going to have a tough heat, but we’ve been getting a little bit faster and feeling a little bit better about the boat every day we come off the water.”

In last year’s second varsity race, Harvard took off after 500 meters and had little problem dispelling the competition, finishing more than five seconds ahead of second-place Cornell. The Crimson is no longer the favorite, and that anonymity on the start line allows the oarsmen to push even harder.

“We have guys who row well,” Ulrich said. “If we can bring it together and have a good result, it will vindicate our early losses. They will be forgotten immediately if we have a good result.”

If both boats were to win on Sunday, Harvard would claim its first two-boat Sprints three-peat since 1964-1966.

“There’s definitely another gear that we haven’t been forced to use,” sophomore varsity three seat Toby Medaris said. “It’s exciting to have to use that.”

The legend seems to be holding up just fine in the present tense.

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.