After successful fall seasons, both the men’s heavyweight and lightweight teams will look to continue to improve as their spring schedule begins this weekend.
The heavyweight team’s fall slate was highlighted by its 12th place overall finish in the 53rd Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston. They also ended the competition as one of the top 10 collegiate teams to compete in the Men’s Championship Eights. The Red finished the 4800-meter course with a time of 13:59.716.
In its final competition of the fall schedule, the Red hosted Hobart, Ithaca College, Mercyhurst and Syracuse at the fifth annual Cornell Autumn Classic and won seven of the eight races it participated in. While in the Head of the Charles Regatta the Red only competed in the eight-man format, in the Cornell Autumn Classic, all teams were able to race in competitions featuring pairs, fours and eights.
As it did in the fall season, Cornell will rely on the leadership of senior captains Daniel Holod and Finn Putnam.
“We have had some freshmen who have really stepped it up, and our captains Holod and Putnam have done what we expected them to do, but really everyone has stepped up between the fall and now,” said heavyweight head coach Todd Kennett ’91. “We’ve worked really hard, and I’m proud of what they have done so far, so I would like to see them put it out on the water now and get some positive results from it.”
The Red will open their spring schedule in Cambridge against Harvard and George Washington on Saturday.
“Harvard is a perennial powerhouse, so to say that we are going to go out there and beat them is a tough thing to ask of our team,” Kennett said. “But, I certainly expect us to take a swing. I will only be really disappointed if we do not do what we are capable of, which should make us very competitive in this race.”
Two weeks later, the team will travel to Syracuse to take on the Orange as well as Navy, while its first home race of the spring will take place April 21 against Yale and Princeton.
In the Head of the Charles Regatta in the fall, the lightweight team competed in the fours and the eights. The fours finished in fourth place, falling to third place Columbia by just .056 seconds, while the eight-man squad was able to capture a silver medal with a time of 14:00.671.
Similarly to the heavyweight team, the lightweights found success in the Cornell Autumn Classic. The Red held all four of the top times in the pairs format. The top duo for the Red completed the course in 13:50.1, far ahead of the fifth-place Hobart crew, which came in at 14:06.8.
Senior captains James McManus and Andrew Thomas will lead Cornell as the team attempts to continue its fall success heading into the spring.
The lightweights will begin their spring by competing in the Ithaca duels this weekend. They will return to the Cornell Rowing Center the following Saturday for the Matthews Cup, which will also feature Ivy League rivals Penn and Harvard.