“It’s becoming a nice trend,” Lapage said of his team’s depth. “It just means that no one’s taking his seat for granted. You have to focus on keeping your seat. Otherwise, there are guys ready and willing to take it. It’s a really healthy squad dynamic.”
The wins kept all five Crimson eights undefeated.
“It was a great bus ride home,” DiSanto said.
No. 2 LIGHTWEIGHTS vs. No. 8 DARTMOUTH, No. 14 MIT
In its first two weekends of racing, Harvard showed off its speed and its depth. On Saturday, in a severe tailwind and a Charles River basin brimming with whitecaps, the Crimson showed something else: its guts.
“The conditions were pretty wet and floppy,” said captain Will Newell, six seat of the first varsity eight. “A lot of the race was about maintaining and trying not to catch a crab...We decided that we were going to do our best, stay relaxed, try to have fun. It was fine; it wasn’t the prettiest rowing but it wasn’t going to be. You do what you can.”
According to Newell, Harvard and the Big Green stayed even for the first 500 meters, but Dartmouth took a few moves in the middle 1,000 that gave it a lead of around two seats just before the last 500.
“I think from 50 meters before to 50 meters after [the 1,500 meter mark] we went from being two seats down to being five or six seats up,” Newell said.
The Crimson was able to maintain its lead for a 1.9 second victory. MIT finished third.
The second varsity eight had a similarly tight race. The Crimson finished with a margin of 2.8 seconds.
“It was really nice to get some close competition, especially against Dartmouth,” Newell said. “For the 1V and the 2V, that was the closest margins we’ve had.”
The third varsity eight race differed sharply from the 1V and 2V events; Harvard won by 12.5 seconds.
“The 3V did a good job of dominating their race,” Newell said.
The freshman eight continued its upward trend with its second win of the season. There was overlap between the Crimson and the Big Green for the first 1,900 meters of the race, but a Dartmouth boat-stopping crab with 100 meters to go allowed Harvard to win by 6.8 seconds. The Engineers were third.
“The water was almost unrowable,” Muri said of the crab. “It was just challenging for everyone out there.”
For the 1F, which was in position to win before the crab, the victory showed significant progress.
“They’re definitely making improvements,” Muri said. “It’s very exciting.”
The only Crimson loss came in the second freshman event. Harvard’s 2F finished third in what was a tight race between all three crews. The Crimson finished 1.4 seconds behind the Big Green and .5 seconds behind Dartmouth.
—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.