PRINCETON, N.J. - The Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association (IRCA) recently announced its 2025 postseason awards and the Navy heavyweight rowing program was recognized with a pair of Empacher-IRCA All-Americans as senior Matt Lexa (Wynnewood, Pa.) was named to the first team and sophomore Nathaniel Duffy (Fairfield, Conn.) to the second team. Additionally, nine fellow Mids garnered Empacher-IRCA Scholar-Athlete honors.

In a year of transition, Lexa continued to be a beacon of success in Navy's first varsity eight crew as he was selected as an IRCA All-American for the second straight season going from a member of the second team in 2024 to the first team in 2025. After working his way into the first varsity eight lineup with appearances in all seven events as a junior last spring, Lexa repeated that feat with another seven-for-seven performance this season. Starting his final collegiate campaign versus Princeton in the seven-seat for the season opener, Lexa moved throughout the boat during the year before concluding his career in that same seven-seat at the IRA National Championship.

A staple of the first varsity eight crew throughout his first two seasons rowing on the Severn River, Duffy found himself locked into the top boat throughout Navy's slate of racing in 2025 as he started in the two-seat against Princeton on April 5 before moving into the stroke seat for three consecutive regular season races and later back again into the stroke at the IRA National Championship.

Led by Lexa and Duffy's effort, Navy's first varsity eight finished its 2025 season in strong form as it started its performance at the IRAs with a third place result in the qualifying heats to edge Wisconsin and Boston University and secure a berth into the event's AB Semifinals. Completing its action on the Cooper River in south New Jersey on June 1 in the Petite Final, Navy's V8 raced against No. 1 seed California, No. 5 Yale, No. 7 Stanford, No. 9 Penn and No. 10 Northeastern in a six-team field to rank seventh through 12th nationally. Navy was competitive throughout as it held onto contact with third-place Stanford, fourth-place Yale and fifth-place Penn at the 1,000-meter mark as those four crews were within 4.26 seconds of each other. Down the stretch, Navy slowly lost seats and contact with the previously mentioned squads and crossed the finish line with an extremely competitive time of 5:34.340, its fastest of the three-day regatta.

This is the fifth time that men's collegiate rowing as a sport has acknowledged its top performing athletes through the IRCA All-American program. In order to be named an All-American, rowers and coxswains must have been nominated by their institution and raced in the team's first varsity boat during the spring. The nominees were then selected to the first, second or honorable mention teams based on the strength of the first varsity's finish at the IRA's, as well as coach comments, individual achievements and erg scores. In total, 104 rowers and coxswain were named as either IRCA First Team All-Americans, IRCA Second Team All-Americans or IRCA Honorable Mention All-Americans across the ranks of heavyweight and lightweight crew in 2025. As a program, Navy had five All-Americans across the heavyweight and lightweight divisions.

Nine members of the heavyweight team were additionally recognized as 2025 IRCA Scholar-Athletes. Recent graduate Duncan Ayles (Westwood, Mass. - honors robotics & control engineering) led the way as he collected his third career IRCA Scholar-Athlete nod. Fellow May grads, Hunter Golly (Orem, Utah - aerospace engineering), Ryan Hollenbach (Davidsonville, Md. - operations research) and Harrison Kaplan (Charlotte, N.C. - honors physics) along with rising seniors Nick Duncan (Farmington, Conn. - quantitative economics), Nathan Pawlowicz (Augusta, Mich. - honors oceanography) and Benjamin Vogel (Arlington, Va. - aerospace engineering) all notched their second scholar-athlete honors. Rising juniors Vladyslav Khanas (Queens, N.Y. - nuclear engineering) and Tyler Smolensky (Red Bank, N.J. - aerospace engineering) round out Navy's high scholastic achievers with their first career accolades.
 
For the 2025 season, all honorees needed to have completed their second season of eligibility, competed in their program's top-three boats during the regular season or raced at the IRA Championships in June and have a 3.50 cumulative GPA or higher through the end of the fall semester.  In total, there were 690 rowers and coxswains from 61 different teams who met the criteria set by the IRCA Awards & Polling Committee.