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Highlights of the Spring Season
July/August 2007
by R. Ryan Hartnett '07

Captain Rachel Jeffers ’07 and the women’s crew have a motto to describe what they do on the water: “It’s just a little Yale rowing,” says Jeffers. “We take it one day at a time. No matter where we are or who we’re racing, ‘it’s just a little Yale rowing.’”

And so it was on Sunday, May 27, in the title race of the NCAA Championships in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The women’s varsity eight actually had their “worst start of the year,” according to coach Will Porter. The Bulldogs stumbled out of the blocks, “catching a crab on their sixth stroke” (that is, getting an oar blade stuck in the water). But they recovered—to capture their first-ever NCAA national title and complete their first perfect season since 1979.

Women’s crew had relied on fast starts all spring as they rowed to a 12-0 record in the dual-race season and captured the Eastern Sprints and Ivy League titles. Despite their bad start in the 2,000-meter championship race, the Elis quickly pulled into the lead and held on, beating Ohio State by less than two seconds.

While rowing her team to a national title, Jeffers missed Class Day exercises in New Haven—where she was presented, in absentia, with the Nellie Pratt Elliot Award, the most prestigious athletic honor given to a senior female at Yale. Also this year, Jeffers, Tess Garrand '10, Jamie Redmond '08, and coxswain Emily Cleveland '07 were named first-team All Americans; coach Porter was named national coach of the year.

Though no other team reached greater heights this spring than women’s crew, the men’s heavyweight crew came close, nipping Harvard at the very end of The Race. (See below.) And three Yale squads competed with the best in the nation: the women’s lacrosse team made a trip to the NCAA tournament, and the men’s heavyweight and lightweight crews raced for national titles. In addition, two individuals, Ryan Lavarnway '09 and John Langhauser '07, broke school records in baseball and the shot put, respectively.

Women’s lacrosse made its third trip to the NCAA tournament in program history. There, led by All-American midfielder Lauren Taylor '08, they fell in the first round to fifth-ranked Maryland, 13-7. But for the unseeded Elis, just getting there was a victory. The team had stumbled to a 4-3 record early in the season, including a loss to eventual Ivy League champion Penn. But they bounced back to win their last nine games and secure one of the eight at-large berths in the tournament.

“We came back from Penn, we all sat down, and we were like: ‘This is not the team we’re going to be—we’re better than this,’” says goalkeeper Ellen Cameron '08. “And everyone really stepped up and started playing as a team, and that’s what got us through.”

Men’s heavyweight crew had one of its best seasons in recent years, and lightweight crew finished fifth in the nation at the U.S. championships in Camden, New Jersey. The heavyweight varsity eight missed out on a spot in the national title race by one-tenth of a second. In their semifinals, the heavyweight rowers held second place behind Harvard for most of the 2,000-meter race before being overtaken by California and Brown in the last strokes. Despite the disappointment, head coach John Pescatore lauded his crew's performance. Coming in, “we had yet to feel like we'd rowed our best race—or a great race,” Pescatore says of his varsity eight. “But for 1,800 meters, that's exactly what we did.”

While the rest of Yale’s squads had less than standout seasons, a few individuals had remarkable springs. On the baseball diamond, catcher Ryan Lavarnway '09 had one of the best seasons of any college player in the nation. He led the country in batting average (.467) and slugging percentage (.873). Lavarnway also made Yale history, setting records for average, slugging percentage, home runs (14), hits (70), doubles (17), RBIs (55), and total bases (131). His 23-game hitting streak to start the season was a school record, and his 25-game streak (dating back to 2006) set a new Ivy League record. Lavarnway was one of 10 finalists for the Brooks Wallace College Player of the Year Award, which is presented annually by the College Baseball Foundation.

In the shot put, John Langhauser '07 continued rewriting the Yale record books. Last February at Coxe Cage in New Haven, Langhauser bested a 57-year-old record established by Jim Fuchs '50 (see Sporting Life, March/April). On May 13 in Princeton, New Jersey, Langhauser unleashed a throw of 18.03 meters, breaking Fuchs’s equally longstanding outdoor record. “No one really talks about outdoor track,” says Langhauser. “No one even knows it exists. But obviously I wanted to break this outdoor record.”

That mission accomplished, Langhauser did not rest easy. Two weeks later, at the NCAA East Regional Track and Field Championship in Gainesville, Florida, Langhauser finished his Yale athletic career by shattering his own record with a throw of 18.43 meters. 

How Sweet It Is
by R. Ryan Hartnett '07

With Yale still a boat length down and only 500 meters to go, head coach John Pescatore figured the 142nd running of the Yale-Harvard Regatta was “essentially over.” But the Eli heavyweight varsity eight decided to make history, storming back on the Thames River in Gales Ferry, Connecticut, on June 9 to win by a half-second. It was the closest finish since 1914 and perhaps the greatest comeback in the history of The Race.

Harvard jumped out to an early lead and steadily pulled away over the first three miles, going up by half a length after a half-mile, by a length at the two-mile mark, and by open water with a mile to go. But then the gap stopped growing, and with only a half-mile to go, Yale began the comeback. As the Eli boat picked up speed, coxswain Alfred Shikany '07 realized that the Harvard rowers were tiring and were anxiously eyeing the surging Bulldogs. Shikany yelled to his crew: “They’re waiting for us to make a move—let’s give them something to watch!”

As far as Pescatore can guess, the Elis took their first lead of the race on their second-to-last stroke. They pulled across the finish line with a time of 19:57.50 to claim their first Sexton Cup since 1999. The finish was so close that Pescatore, following behind in a launch, looked to the line judges to find out who had won. They signaled that it was Yale. Said Pescatore: “Then I realized: this actually, somehow, incredibly, happened.”  

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