The Radcliffe lightweight crew is a program in flux.

A team that had consistently won medals at the IRA National Championships, notching a bronze medal as recently as 2006, has fallen short over the past two years.

In 2007, the crew’s varsity eight fell just off the medal stand, losing to a suprise Bucknell boat, which won the gold. The team was just four seconds short of third, ending the crew’s six-year run of medaling.

Last spring, the program fell to a sixth- place finish, as Wisconsin regained its national championship crown.

In order to respond, the crew will look to its new varsity coach, Heather Cartwright, to pull the Black and White out of limbo.

And from all accounts, the crew is ready to do just that.

“[Cartwright] has a very structured team, and the experience to back that up,” lightweight captain Rebekah Kharrazi said. “We have confidence in what she’s designing for us. She has very high expectations [that] we’re ready for.”

This season, the team will focus on its strengths: organization and consistency. Since the inception of the IRA’s to determine lightweight national champions, Radcliffe has finished in the top six 11 of 12 years. Coaches and personel have changed. Programs like Bucknell and Stanford are on the rise. But through all of the changes, the Black and White have remained at the top.

Despite the end of season disappointment, the crew had some success last year. The Black and White rose to as high as No. 3 in the national rankings after a second-place finish at the Knecht Cup. The lightweights also tallied a second-place team finish at Eastern Sprints, as all four of its boats—the varsity eight, second varsity eight, varsity four, and novice eight—placed no worse than fourth, with the varsity four leading the way with a second-place finish.

It was a mark of the team’s added depth in recent years, which it hopes to build on this year. Sending out two varsity eight boats this weekend at the Head of the Charles is a good start.

As a consequence, the Radcliffe lightweights have set the bar high.

“I let them set their team goals, and they have, as a team, the goal to win the points trophy at Eastern Sprints in the spring,” Cartwright said.

The crew looks to build off of the success of last year and to feed off of the success of its new coach.

She coached the lightweight varsity crews of the University of Western Ontario while still attending the university, but her most recent experience was on the heavyweight side. She served as an assistant coach at Princeton until the 2004 season, when she moved to be an assistant at Boston University. At the 2006 Eastern Sprints, she led the Terriers’ varsity four A to a silver medal—the team’s first Sprints medal in 13 years.

But this year is different. She will have the added pressure of being front and center at the head of Radcliffe crew, one of the most storied rowing programs in history.

“I’ve been a head coach in Canada before, and I’ve worked successfully there, so I feel prepared to lead,” Cartwright said. “I think I’m well suited to lead this group: I have high standards and I think I match them well.”

Cartwright sees more of the benefits than the burden that the Radcliffe history eventually brings.

“I don’t find that it’s an unusual burden at Harvard; [rather], I embrace it,” Cartwright said. “The students are smart, they know what to do.”

Former heavyweight captain Carrie (Williams) Morelock ’07 will join Cartwright on the lightweight staff, serving as assistant coach.

Although the benefits of coaching at Harvard abound, Cartwright is still constrained by time. Just recently named head coach on Sept. 23, Cartwright has had only three weeks to work with her crew. Nonetheless, she has stuck to the basics: “fitness, technique, and fundamentals.” Through these, the coach expects the program to grow, prosper, and achieve its objectives.

“We’re getting goals initially...at a team level and at an individual level that we’re going to obtain and strive for,” Kharrazi said. “That’s how we’ll reach our ultimate goals.”

—Staff writer Walter E. Howell can be reached at wehowell@fas.harvard.edu.