The Crimson freshmen also had a successful start to their first dual-racing season. The freshman eight finished its race in 6:03.6, defeating the Blue Hens by a margin of 12.6 seconds. The Harvard A entry of the freshman fours crossed the finish line in 6:55.2.

With Harvard’s first Ivy League matchups two weeks down the road, Delaware was an important preparatory race.

“It was definitely good to get a 2000-meter race in the legs,” Nesel said. “We hadn’t done it yet, and it is a very unique experience.  Getting warm in the legs for our Ivy opener in two weeks is important both mentally and physically.”

Chang also discussed the importance of Saturday’s win in boosting the team’s morale and motivation for improvement.

“I think it gave us confidence that what we are working really hard on every day is actually working,” Chang said. “We have two weeks until the Ivy opener, and we are just going to work on getting faster and faster every day.”

The Crimson lightweight crew will take on Cornell and Penn in Ithaca on April 7, when it will look to stretch its record of consecutive dual-season wins.

“We want to win every race we enter,” Nesel said. “We have had precedent in the past two years: Varsity has had undefeated regular seasons, and last year we had a Sprints Championship.  We want to keep that momentum going all the way to the National Championships in June this year.”

—Staff writer Alexa N. Gellman can be reached at agellman@college.harvard.edu.