The Radcliffe heavyweights competed in NCAAs last weekend, where the Varsity Eight (above) took on the top crews from around the country. In its last race, the EAWRC Sprints, the Varsity Eight finished just 0.9 seconds behind 2008 NCAA champion Yale.

Though it wasn’t always pretty, the No. 6 Radcliffe women’s heavyweight crew team is back where it ended last season—at the NCAA Championships.

The 2009 season held its share of losses to perennial rivals, but the Black and White saved some of its most competitive racing for May and managed to earn a bid to Camden, New Jersey.

In addition to the victories on the race course, four rowers—sophomore Olivia Coffey, incoming co-captain Laura Huppert, senior Esther Lofgren and captain Anna Kendrick—were named to the All-New England team while coach Liz O’Leary took home the honor of New England Coach of the Year.

Earning a bid to the NCAAs was particularly satisfying for Radcliffe, as the Grand Final of the Sprints saw the Varsity Eight edge Princeton and finish within one second of the No. 2 Yale Bulldogs.

“At Eastern Sprints, we got second, and I think that we should have been rowing like that all season and our previous results don’t really reflect that,” Coffey said. “It’s a little frustrating not to peak earlier, but now that we’re coming into final races, we’re where we want to be.”

Earlier in the season, the Tigers had finished 6.8 seconds ahead of the Black and White to win the Class of 1975 Cup while Yale beat Radcliffe for the Case Cup by 5.9 seconds on the April 25 Charles River Challenge.

The Black and White showed early season promise by beating Dartmouth and Syracuse on April 18 to win the O’Leary Cup.

Both the Varsity Eight and the Second Varsity Eight showed good speed in the second half of the race course to comfortably edge the Big Green and the Orange.

But the Charles River Challenge saw the Black and White lose to three ranked opponents—the aforementioned Yale, USC, and Virginia—before bouncing back with wins against Gonzaga and Tennessee to close the weekend.

On the first day, Radcliffe struggled to find a consistent rhythm and prevent other crews from pulling away after the first 500 meters—something that the Black and White’s hopes to refine leading up to the NCAAs.

For the lightweights, first-year coach Heather Cartwright has moved into the top job without missing a beat, leading the No. 5 lightweight women’s crew team to a 5-1 dual record that included defeats of top-ten opponents Georgetown, Prinecton, and MIT during the season.

“We feel like we set a great foundation for the future by working really hard and having a really great team dynamic and ultimately having a lot of fun,” captain Rebekah Kharrazi said.

The season began with a 3-0 start after wins against Holy Cross and Smith, as well as the Hoyas, who the Varsity Eight defeated by a 6.4-second margin to win the Class of 1999 Cup for the first time in five years.

Radcliffe saw its national rank rise as high as No. 2 after its open-water win against Princeton on April 25, one week after coming up just 1.53 seconds short against No. 3 Stanford.

“That was a really big win for us because, in its 11-year history, we had only won [that race] once before this year,” Kharazzi said.

But the Black and White could not prevail against No. 1 Wisconsin —which also claimed first place in the EAWRC Sprints on May 17—as the Badgers won the Knect Cup on April 11 with a margin of just over 10 seconds.

Though the Black and White finished in a disappointing fourth place in the Grand Final of the EAWRC Springs, Radcliffe will return to the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships on June 4 in Sacramento, Calif.

At Sprints, it was largely the same story, with Wisconsin dominating the field, except that Princeton and Georgetown were able to avenge their dual season losses in the Grand Final, which saw Radcliffe finish fourth with a time of 6:57.341 and 28.7 team points.

But the Black and White are determined that the letdown will not be repeated early next month when many of the same crews compete for the national championship.

—Staff writer Robert T. Hamlin can be reached at rhamlin@fas.harvard.edu.