Dartmouth's men's heavyweight rowing team posted its best finish in five years at this year's Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship Regatta, with the varsity eight and novice eight boats both placing 12th nationally. The men's second varsity eight netted 14th place overall.
The regatta, which took place June 4-6 at Lake Natoma, Calif., marked another step in the crew team's progress over the past several seasons, men's heavyweight coach Topher Bordeau said.
"Two years ago, we were 24th [in the nation]," Bordeau said. "There is no other team in the country that has made as big of a two-year jump."
The varsity eight struggled early, finishing fourth in its Thursday morning heat after Harvard University, Brown University and Syracuse University. The crew finished nearly 18 seconds off Harvard's time of 5:53.6.
The crew used its opening heat as "preparation" for the rest of the regatta, Bordeau said.
"It was good for the team to have that first race," he noted. "We'd gone out to California a few days earlierbut the guys really hadn't gone full tilt down the race course before then."
Because the boat failed to advance automatically to the semifinals, it moved to a repechage, a race it had to win to proceed to the semifinals.
"We knew that our Thursday afternoon race [in the repechage]would be the one that would define success more than the morning heat," Bordeau said.
Adding to the pressure was the fact that the Big Green's draw included rival George Washington University, which narrowly beat Dartmouth at the Eastern Sprints Regatta three weeks prior.
"We knew that to beat [George Washington] we would have to have a very good race, if not our very best race," Bordeau said.
The crew stayed even with George Washington in the first 500 meters of the race before pulling ahead in the latter portion, Bordeau said. Dartmouth finished the race with a time of 5:57.5, beating the Colonials by more than a boat length and netting a spot in the top 12.
"That was the tipping point of the regatta for us," Bordeau said. "After Thursday, we were up against crews that were likely more powerful and more experienced than us."
The other crews did pose tougher competition for the Big Green the top four teams in Dartmouth's semifinal finished in under six minutes. The Big Green placed sixth, missing the grand final and earning a spot in the petite final instead. The varsity eight finished sixth in the petite final, placing 12th overall.
Although the varsity eight did not fare as well against more experienced teams, Bordeau said that the other crews gave them a taste of a higher level of competition.
"I think it was positive for the crew to see the company they're now in [and] to see the kind of speed it takes to compete at that level," he said.
The freshman eight also saw marked improvement over previous years. After starting slowly in the opening heat, the boat improved their time by 27 seconds in their repechage to advance to the semifinals. A third-place finish behind University of Wisconsin and Syracuse landed them a spot in the petite finals, where they placed sixth with a time of 6:15.7.
Bordeau called the freshman boat "one of the best we've had in a long time."
"They represented themselves credibly," he added.
The second varsity eight performed well despite a number of setbacks, Bordeau said, citing a key team member's injury just before the regatta occurred.
The crew struggled early in the regatta with last place finishes in their opening heat and repechage, finishing 33.3 seconds behind heat winner Brown and 30.6 seconds behind repechage victor Boston University.
The team finished second in the third level final for 14th place overall.
The second varsity boat "raced with an extremely high level of guts, especially for the first thousand meters [in the third level final]," Bordeau said.
"They raced completely beyond their limits, and that's what fearless racers do," he said. "It's emblematic of a culture that makes this program successful."
