This year’s heavyweight senior class certainly deserves all the hype that surrounds it. With the experience of 11 seniors leading the squad and the highest finish at NCAAs in three years last season, the Radcliffe heavyweights have earned the respect of their peers and thrown down the gauntlet for a competitive and fast year.

This season, nothing is out of reach for the first varsity boat, propelled by the strength of the senior class. Physically and mentally, these veterans are ready to prove that Radcliffe is a world class team.

The 2007-’08 season ended with a decisive victory in the petite finals at the NCAA Championships. The varsity eight battled to a three-second win over second-place Virginia, and the team finished in ninth place in the point tally.

“We’ve been really successful these past years. I remember last year I watched them compete in the NCAAs after we had finished our team’s race [at Olympic training],” senior Esther Lofgren said. “We watched the race tracker, it’s horribly not fun to watch, and we’re sitting there, and Radcliffe was duking it out with UVA in the Petite Final of the NCAAs, and we edged out a great program in Virginia.”

The team returns six members of that varsity eight­—including four seniors—to this year’s campaign for the national title.

The senior class started this season by taking an all-senior boat to Oklahoma City to best Washington State by seven seconds at the Head of the Oklahoma in the first race of the day. The Cougars were eighth in the point tally at last year’s NCAAs and finished fifth in the Grand Final, putting them directly on Radcliffe’s ’08-’09 hit list.

“It’s only positive for us,” co-captain Anna Kendrick said. “It was a great opener, and it was just the seniors, so we were able to bond as a class. I think we can only get stronger from here, bringing in juniors and sophomores.”

Though Stanford beat the Black and White by 11.2 seconds in that 4000-meter race—Radcliffe later placed third behind both teams in the 500-meter OG&E NightSprint—the weekend was a resounding success and was also an early gauge of the fitness of the team’s competitors.

“The Head of Oklahoma was incredible—to take the senior boat and do well,” co-captain Liz Demers said. “It gave us a lot of momentum and showed us our strengths. We’re aggressive, but we also saw where we need to improve. We’ve been putting in some really good work, aiming to do better, and catching Stanford will be a tangible goal—to catch them [and] pass them at the Head of the Charles.”

This weekend, the Black and White’s varsity eight will start directly behind its Cardinal counterparts in the Championship Eight event. The rowing nation will watch to see whether the Black and White can make up the 10-second stagger on Stanford, last year’s NCAA Grand Final runner-up by only 0.9 seconds.

In looking to defeat the Cardinal and win this weekend’s race, Radcliffe may turn to Lofgren, the team’s returning weapon. After taking last year off to devote herself fully to training for the Olympic squad, Lofgren finally returns to Cambridge to complete her senior year. Bringing experience, knowledge, and passion to the team, Lofgren will take the senior class to the next level.

“I’m definitely older, I’ve been here longer,” Lofgren said. “From being at Radcliffe for that long, and then training this past year, the hours of training, the technical side builds up.”

“We’re so excited to see [Lofgren] back, and she’s such a powerful rower, great example for the team,” Kendrick added. “She’s just a world level rower, and she shows what it means.”

Having trained with the U.S. national team for a year, Lofgren brings a unique perspective beyond that of the vast majority of college level rowers. As she returns home to the Black and White, Lofgren recognizes that Radcliffe has only gotten stronger since she left.

“I definitely think we’ve been building since 2006, and it showed,” Lofgren said. “I think we have the strength of numbers and the determination of our senior class we can build on. I’m really excited to see what we can do. We’ve been improving our rankings at NCAAs each year since 2006. We want to move forward from that—we not only want our boat to be a medal contender, but we want all the boats to be medal contenders. We have to back it up, but No.1 is in the realm of possibility.”

—Staff writer Elizabeth A. Joyce can be reached at eajoyce@fas.harvard.edu.