Freshman Laura Bleeke (far right) and the Radcliffe heavyweight novices started off their first collegiate fall season in peak form, taking down all three of their opponents by margins of at least 14 seconds. The Black and White rookies, who return to action in the spring, come from a variety of rowing backgrounds.

Rowing excellence is not uncommon at Harvard. And this fall, a new crop of oarswomen has swept its way to an undefeated fall season.

The Radcliffe heavyweight crew novices won all three of their races—the Head of the Housatonic, the Green Monster and the Foot of the Charles—outstripping opposing crews by at least 14 seconds in each victory.

“If [our team has] been able to be successful early on, then that sort of sets the standard and sets the bar pretty high,” said Black and White coach Liz O’Leary about the strong fall season.

With the overwhelming success that the newest Radcliffe rowers have seen all season, one might think that the crew is composed entirely of USRowing Junior National Champions with years of experience on the water.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. While there are some on the squad that do have a classic recruited-rower profile, members of the class come from a variety of backgrounds, something O’Leary cites as positive.

“It’s somewhat unusual to have your recruited class have some with a lot of experience and some with not as much, but we’re very confident in our ability to teach people how to row,” O’Leary said.

DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

Laura Bleeke and Erin Slatery, who both began rowing early in high school, followed a more predictable trajectory toward collegiate crew than many of their classmates.

Bleeke, who hails from St. Louis, initially played volleyball because of her six-foot stature but decided to switch to rowing after meeting coaches from the local club.

“I went out to the boathouse and tried [rowing] out sophomore year [of high school],” Bleeke said. “I really liked it and it was a lot of fun.... I’ve been rowing since then.”

Bleeke rowed for the St. Louis Rowing Club for three years before following in her sister Caroline’s footsteps and coming to Harvard.

“The team here is great, [and] the dynamic is awesome,” Bleeke explained. “It’s really competitive and all the girls are really talented so they push you.... You know that they’re trying their hardest, which is really important when you’re rowing.”

Slatery also points to the strong group ethos as one of the most positive aspects of her experience so far with Radcliffe crew.

“[The team is] just so tight off the water and on the water,” Slatery said. “We’re not cliquey, there’s not a lot of drama.... The upperclassmen have been so supportive. They’re our friends; they’re constantly coming up to tell us that we’re fantastic.”

Slatery, a native of the DC area, was a highly-touted recruit and earned many honors from USRowing. She began rowing freshman year of high school but became seriously committed to the sport as a junior when she realized how far she could go with more training.

This fall season, Slatery has often appeared in the bow or stroke seats of the eight, a spot reserved for rowers with strong technical skills.

“[Rowing with Radcliffe is] a completely different level of rowing than I’m used to,” Slatery said. “I think it’s one of the most exciting parts of the sport—just to be able to row with some athletes who have been in boats for eight years.”

Spring will be a return to a familiar season of racing for Slatery, who had never previously participated in a fall season. After a break from the water over the winter, the team will compete with each other for seats in the various Ivy races that will occur over the semester.

“There’ll be a lot of competition within the team, where we’re all trying to beat each other to make the best boats,” she said. “Then in the spring, we’ll come together again as a team and we’ll go out there and beat Yale and all the other Ivies.”

A SWEEPING IMPORT

It’s over 9000 miles from Freddie Archibald’s hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand to Harvard, but the distance certainly hasn’t slowed down the freshman, who was able to row with the first varsity eight during the fall season.

“It was heaps of fun,” Archibald said. “The older girls, all the seniors and everyone, were so nice and it was such a privilege to row with them. Just technically and physically, they’re all pretty amazing.”

Archibald began rowing as a freshman in high school at St. Margaret’s College and found great success with the sport. She rowed for the New Zealand Junior National Team, competing at the Junior World Rowing Championships at Eton in the summer of 2011 in a coxless four. Archibald met the recruiters from Harvard at Eton and later agreed to join the Class of 2016.

“Freddie—now there’s a personality,” O’Leary said. “Freddie Archibald is a character.... She’s been quite successful in everything she’s done here this fall to the point where I have her in my top boat as a freshman.”

Archibald admits that the transition from living in New Zealand to Cambridge has certainly not been without its challenges.

“[Coming from New Zealand] it’s really different,” Archibald said. “I can’t place my finger on it. I thought, ‘English-speaking [country]; English-speaking [country]; it’s be the same,’ but it’s really not. I’m still adjusting. It’s just a whole different culture here, a different sense of humor, different way we talk—just everything.”

Regardless of any troubles acclimating to life in a new country, Archibald has had a commanding fall season. Sitting in the four-seat for the Championship Eight race at Head of the Charles alongside with some of the world’s best, she helped Radcliffe crew glide to a seventh-place finish in a field of 40.

Still, Archibald looks forward to joining the freshmen again for winter training and the spring season.

“I’ve really missed rowing with the other freshmen,” she said. “They’re a great group of girls and we’ve all bonded really well.”

BECKONED TO THE BOATHOUSE

There may be a lot of hype, especially after The Game, that a certain school in New Haven falls short of fair Harvard, but for freshman Sophia Becker, it wasn’t the strength of the football team that swayed her decision to come to Cambridge.

“I was going to play soccer at Yale, but [assistant coach] Cory [Bosworth] and Liz saved me,” Becker quipped. “[Now], here I am, rowing at Harvard, and there really is no other place I’d rather be.”

Although Becker had just a year of crew under her belt at the Essex Rowing Club, unlike the other recruits who had rowed all through high school, she attributes her success on the water to soccer, a sport she had played her entire life.

“Soccer is definitely a big emphasis on legs, and so is rowing,” Becker said. “I think that the strength [necessary for crew] is definitely something that I’ve had my whole life, so that’s been really helpful. [Soccer is] also a focused sport, like rowing is…so I’ve taken what I’ve known from soccer and applied it to rowing and it’s made me better.”

Despite her lack of crew experience, Becker’s erg times sparked the attention of the heavyweight coaches, who recruited her to Harvard. Ever since, the freshman has flourished on the team.

Although O’Leary notes that it is optimal to recruit women with crew experience, she appreciates the advantages that rowers like Becker with previous athletic ability bring to the team.

“If you get a great athlete, [then] they understand competition, they understand training, they understand hard work, they understand consistency, [and] they understand success and failure and how you come back from that,” O’Leary said. “If they already have those basic ingredients, I can teach them how to row.”

FROM THE COURT TO THE RIVER

Coming into Harvard, sophomore Kelly Whelan probably had a very different idea of the direction her Crimson athletic career would take.

“I started training competitively for tennis when I was six,” Whelan said. “My older sister played D1 tennis [and] my mom played D1 tennis, so it’s kind of a family sport.”

Whelan was recruited by Harvard to play tennis and did just that her freshman year, but after over a decade on the court, she decided to take her talents to the water.

“At the end of [freshman] year, I decided I needed a change, and so I took the summer to make my decision,” Whelan said. “I had been talking to Liz a little bit, and it just seemed like a really good opportunity, so I just walked on [to the team].”

Whelan may not have joined the team until her sophomore year, but she says her unique start with the sport actually gave her an advantage on the water.

“I think a big part of the freshman year athletic experience is really learning how to be an athlete at Harvard,” Whelan said. “I’m not as convinced that it’s really that sport-specific.”

Out of the roughly 40 walk-ons that Radcliffe crew receives every year, O’Leary estimates that between five and 15 ultimately stay with the sport. Although the walk-ons are not part of her original crew class, the coach cherishes the opportunity to spread the sport of crew to potential rowers who may never have been exposed to the sport before.

“I love walk-ons because they’re sort of the bonus to your recruiting class. We have these great kids whom we’ve recruited, and we’re really excited about them, and we think this is going to be the core of this freshman/novice class,” O’Leary said. “[But for those] who stay with the sport, it’s just really fun to see how they, over time in their freshman year, just add more and more to the personality and the energy and the success of the novice team, and they can have a big impact pretty fast.”

While the Black and White has been characterized by success in the past, taking the Ivy championship last year and placing multiple athletes on Olympic teams, O’Leary recognizes the edge that this unbeaten novice class provides for Radcliffe crew.

“When you have a strong and successful freshmen class, that sort of pushes everybody,” O’Leary said. “Yes, you like to have the top, most experienced returning athletes from the varsity eight who won the varsity eight last year to be pulling people up. But to have the younger class pushing everybody up is just going to bring up the expectation and opportunity for the whole team.”

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samanthalin@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Cordelia F. Mendez can be reached at cordeliamendez@college.harvard.edu