All eyes were on the East Coast in Week Four, with a slate of exciting Ivy League racing shaking up the rankings in both the heavyweight and lightweight divisions. The Pennsylvania Heavweights and Princeton Lightweights both knocked off favorited opposition on the Schuylkill River, while the Harvard boathouse continued to build momentum across both programs as we get closer to the championship season.
Harvard vs. Princeton
In a clash of the Ivies, No. 4-ranked Harvard took back the Compton Cup from the No. 8 Princeton Tigers after a comfortable three-second win in the 1v on Lake Carnegie, NJ. The Tigers, who have held the cup for the last two years and whose 1v were undefeated going into the matchup, were no match for the Crimson, who swept the 1v through 4v in dominant fashion. Harvard’s 1v set a blistering time of 5:28 in a light tailwind as they looked to build on a 15-second victory over Cornell the week prior. The Crimson leaves this matchup with crucial momentum in all boats as we creep closer to the Eastern Sprints, while Princeton has little time to regather before back-to-back weeks of Ivy matchups between Yale, Cornell and Brown.
Princeton Lightweights vs. Pennsylvania and Georgetown
On the lightweight side, No. 4 ranked Princeton stunned No. 2 Pennsylvania on the Schuylkill, taking back the Wood-Hammond trophy in the 1v by 0.4 seconds, after losing by a canvas to Penn last year. The Quakers swept the lower boats in the 2v through 4v, with No. 10 Georgetown also racing three eights that were off the pace of the winners across the board. Princeton’s victory is sure to shake up the lightweight rankings, after a punishing nine-second loss to Cornell in Ithaca last weekend, many thought they were off the winning pace this year. This is Penn’s second home loss of the season, after falling to the Harvard lightweights two weeks ago in a similarly close race.
Pennsylvania vs. Yale and Columbia
An hour south in Philadelphia, PA, another highly anticipated Ivy League dual went down as No. 10 ranked University of Pennsylvania shocked No. 7 Yale with an open water victory in the 1v. The win ended a 23-year drought, with the Blackwell Cup returning to the Burk-Bergman boathouse for the first time since 2002. Yale retained the Colgan cup for overall points, with wins in the 2v through 4v. No. 16-ranked Columbia also raced in the 1v and 2v, but were well off the winning pace with double-digit margins between the winners of both races. Penn cemented themselves as a dark-horse team this year in the 1v, after several weeks of impressive results against top teams on the East Coast. Yale, however, is starting to see the wheels fall off after giving up another multiple-decade win streak in the 1v (the Bulldogs also gave up the Olympic Axe to Dartmouth this season for the first time since 2004). The bulldogs have been somewhat mercurial this season, and Mike Gennaro is running out of time to find consistency with his group as we move to the pointy end of the season.
Brown vs. Northeastern
On the Seekonk River in Providence, RI, No. 5 ranked Brown made easy work of No.11 Northeastern with open water victories in the 1V through 3V. The win in the 1V marks the first time the Bears retained the Dreissigacker cup in back-to-back years for the first time since 2018-19. After tough losses to California and Stanford at the Redwood Invitational last week, Paul Cooke’s men regained momentum with a much-needed win against a middling Northeastern team that has struggled to tally wins against top-10 teams this season.
Harvard Lightweights vs Navy and MIT
The No. 1 ranked Harvard lightweights continued their dominant run this season after open water victories against the No. 7 ranked Naval Academy and No. 8 MIT in the 1v and 2v. Navy pipped Harvard in the 3v, while Harvard won the 4v 4+ against MIT. The wins in the top two boats meant Harvard retained the Haines Cup and Paulovich Trophies over Navy for the third straight year. Harvard’s 1v and 2v, along with Penn’s 3v, are the only remaining undefeated crews in the otherwise closely-contested lightweight league. Their perfect streak will be put to the test on Lake Carnegie next week against Princeton and Yale, in a historical matchup that is sure to be one of the most highly anticipated races of the season.
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