The race remained relatively close throughout the first 500 meters.

“I thought they had a good strong start, and so did we,” said sophomore William Hakim, coxswain of the third varsity eight. “For the first 500 meters, we were both really going at it.”

At around the 500-meter point, the race started to open up in Harvard’s favor.

“We took a push and we really started taking seats,” Hakim said. “We just kept moving and kept our foot on the pedal through the rest of the race.”

Harvard was able to hold on to its lead and defeat the Cornell crew in 6:09.8.

The first and second freshman eights each won their races with times of 6:03.7 and 6:18.4, respectively.  The strong showing at Cornell was important for building momentum for the Crimson right at the start of the season.

“In the past, Cornell has been one of our tougher dual races,” Paresky said. “It was really exciting to get such a big win early in the season.”

Harvard continues its Ivy League matchups with a race against Brown on April 7th in Providence, R.I.

“Last year, the 3V was not able to win [the] Sprints Championship at the end of the season,” Paresky said. “That was a big disappointment for us given that we had gone undefeated in the regular season.  I think the focus this year is just to make sure to get faster so that we can give it our best shot when it comes time for Sprints.”

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