April 7, 2007

BOSTON, Mass. -- Harvard's heavyweight crew team won each of the five races contested on the day between the Crimson, Navy and Penn for the second-consecutive season, Saturday morning on the Charles River in Boston, Mass. The victory in the varsity race allowed the Crimson to maintain possession of the Adams Cup for the seventh-straight season.

"We're disappointed in the result of the varsity race, but we feel better about our performance when compared to the results of both last year's Adams Cup race and our race last weekend against Princeton," said Navy head coach Rick Clothier.

The Mids held a slim lead of one seat after 500 meters of the varsity race, but Harvard would overtake Navy and take a lead of their own of nearly four seats over the second 500 meters of the course. The Crimson advantage would slowly increase over the remainder of the race until they posted a winning time of 6:07.0.

Navy would finish in second place in the race with a clocking of 6:15.3, while Penn placed third with a time of 6:23.4.

Harvard won last year's varsity race by 11 seconds over Navy, with the Mids narrowly holding off the Quakers by 1.2 seconds. This year, Navy finished eight seconds in back of the Crimson and eight seconds in front of Penn.

Last week's results saw Navy's varsity boat drop a 14-second decision to the Tigers.

"I can see the improvement in our boat," said Clothier. "We had a much more competitive race than we did both a year ago and last week. We still have things to work on but we are getting better."

The second varsity race saw the Crimson take leads of one-half of a boat length after 500 meters and one full length by 1000 meters before winning the race with a time of 6:18.6. The Mids and the Quakers, meanwhile, raced seat-to-seat down the course and finished in a dead heat with identical times of 6:23.1.

The Mids finished 20 seconds in back of Harvard during the 2006 second varsity race.

Harvard would win each of the remaining three races on the day, with Navy finishing in second place in each contest.

The Mids will take next weekend off from racing before returning to action April 20 when Navy plays host to Cornell and Syracuse in the Goes Trophy races.

Varsity Eight (Adams Cup race)
Harvard, 6:07.0; Navy, 6:15.3; Penn, 6:23.4
Second Varsity Eight
Harvard, 6:18.6; Navy, 6:23.1; Penn, 6:23.1
Third Varsity Eight
Harvard, 6:25; Navy, 6:41
First Freshman Eight
Harvard, 6:18.3; Navy, 6:37.7; Penn, 6:49.9
Second Freshman Eight
Harvard, 6:06; Navy, 6:16