College Sailing: Spring Season Update

It was a busy weekend of conference championships to determine which schools would advance to the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) Spring Nationals to begin later this month in Charleston, SC. Chris Klevan reports…

#1 Yale Wins New England Championship
The morning at the Savin Hill Yacht Club showed an early, stiff seabreeze. “Brisk,” said PRO Alden Reid. As predicted, the breeze, building throughout the final day of competition, coupled with the temperature created an atmosphere fitting only for the New England Coed Championship/ US Coast Guard Alumni Bowl.

The #1 Yale Bulldogs entered the boatyard 4 points behind Saturday’s leaders, the #15 Roger Williams Hawks and defending New England Champions. Throughout the day on Sunday the Bulldogs outmatched the opposition, finishing the regatta 1st overall with 201 total points, 17 point ahead of Roger Williams.

NEISA Sailor of the Year, Ian Barrows with Babineau trophy winner, NEISA Crew of the Year, Clara Robertson won A-Division narrowly over University of Rhode Island’s Rachel Bryer (‘17), Hannah Scanlon (‘18) and Ellis Havelock (‘18). Throughout the season, Mr. Barros and Ms. Robertson have proven to be the fastest boat in the nation. The pair caught fire in the middle of the day Saturday and sailed extremely impressively in the breeze.

Roger William’s second place finish was led by an transcendent B-Division win by Junior, Mackenzie Bryan, Jennifer Angell (‘19) and Michael McBrien (‘18).

The home team, #3 Boston College finished 3rd overall with 226 points.

#1 Yale, #15 Roger Williams, #3 Boston College, #11 Boston University, #12 Coast Guard, #7 Dartmouth, #18 Brown, Rhode Island and #12 Tufts composed the top 9 respectively and are the teams that will represent NEISA at the ICSA Semi-Final, May 30-31 in Charleston, SC.

Notably, #20 Harvard, #4 MIT, #14 Bowdoin and #17 Connecticut College failed to qualify for the Coed Semi-final regatta. This year’s NEISA Coed Championship was one of the deepest regattas of the year.

#9 Hobart and William Smith Colleges Dominate Mid Atlantic Championship
In one of the most impressive showing this season, Hobart and William Smith Colleges dominated Sunday to win the America Trophy/ MAISA Conference Championship, hosted at Cornell University.

Cayuga Lake presented a home-like advantage for the neighboring HWS sailors. With no races outside the top-3 on Sunday, Freshman Hector Guzman with Maya Weber (‘20) and Adam Schafer (‘17), won B-Division by a whopping 22 points after 15 races.

The standout performance from the HWS B-Division team in conjunction with a well sailed regatta from Greiner Hobbs (‘18) and Anna Flaherty (‘20) sealed the deal for MAISA’s newest champion. If Guzman and company can replicate that effort in Charleston, the HWS team is a legitimate contender to take down the perennial favorite, Yale.

“It has been a while since our last America Trophy win,” said HWS Head Coach, Scott Iklé “It reminds us how special and important these events are to the athletes. These championships are hard to win. A championship title is a confirmation of hard work, commitment and dedication by a team. There are a lot of great teams in MAISA with rich histories, so to once again be included on the winner’s list of the America Trophy is a sense of accomplishment for all the past, present and future HWS sailors. It was a special weekend.”

“Sailing at Cornell is like sailing at home,” continued Iklé. “There is a strong tie between the teams and the programs have worked together to grow with each other’s help. This friendship extends back to the late 1990’s, so it was great to see the two teams working together to pull off the event. It was great to have almost the entire HWS team there at some time during the weekend cheering on their teammates, but more importantly working with their friends at Cornell to showcase college sailing in the Finger Lakes. Both teams took pride in running this regatta for their MAISA friends.

Senior, Patrick Snow won A-Division with Mary Morocco (‘19) and Brittany Slook (‘20) for the Naval Academy Midshipmen. #5 Navy finished second overall at the regatta, with 158 points.

Fordham finished 3rd with 196 points.

#9 Hobart and William Smith, #5 Navy, Fordham, #2 Georgetown, #10 George Washington, #16 St. Mary’s, Hampton, #19 ODU and Kings Point were the qualifying teams from MAISA and rounded up the top 9 accordingly.

#7 Stanford Wins the Pacific Coast and Santa Barbara City College goes to first National Championship
The #7 Stanford Cardinal won the PCCSC Championship decisively with 66 total points. A committee won A-Division for Stanford with Will La Dow (‘18), Reinier Eenkema Van Dijk (‘17) and William Marshall (‘19) all taking turns on the tiller with John Cannistraro (‘17) and Cassie Obel (‘19) in the front of the boat.

Jacob Resenberg (‘20) of Stanford with Sarah Placek (‘18), Haley Fox (‘18) and Elena Vandenberg (‘18) narrowly, finishing with 38 points, 1 point fewer than Hawaii’s Chuck Eaton (‘17) with Cuylar Zimmerman (‘19) and Annika Garrett (‘19).

UC Santa Barbara finished second with 81 points, Hawaii finished 3rd with 91 points and for the first time in school history, Santa Barbara City qualified for the Semi-Finals, finishing 4th overall.

University of Washington wins Northwest Coed Championship
Behind an impressive scoreline, the Washington Huskies won the NWICSA Coed Championship with 20 total points after 12 races. The effort undoubtedly resulted in a win in both A and B division.

Connor Hughes (‘19) and Audrey Jacobs (‘18) won A-Division with 9 points, including 3 first place finishes. Nathaniel Gordon (‘20) and Cassidy Lynch (‘17) won B-Division with 11 points and 3 bullets of their own.

The UBC Thunderbirds of British Columbia narrowly edged Oregon State and Western Washington to finish second overall with 35 points, securing the final berth to Nationals.

Northwestern and Stanford win and are headed to Team Race Nationals.
The Northwestern University Wildcats cap an impressive season with a Midwest Team Race Championship win. Their 16-2 record was enough to edge University of Wisconsin (13-5), who took second and the last spot MCSA offers to Team Race Nationals.

Jacob Bruce (‘16), Michael Pauleen (‘18), Ryder Easterlin (‘20), Susan Riley (‘17), Noah Rosenthal (‘18), Audrey DeBruine (‘19), Mark Davies (‘20) and Zachary Herron (‘18) led the effort for the Wildcats and look towards Charleston to continue their team race season.

The #7 Stanford Cardinal won the Carter Ford Trophy/ PCCSC Team Race Championship with a 7-1 overall record. The performance by Reiner Eenkema Van Dijk (‘17), Taylor Kirkpatrick (‘20), Will La Dow (‘18), Kathryn Booker (‘19), Jacob Rosenberg (‘20) and Sarah Placek (‘18) was enough to send the Cardinal to Team Race National once again.

Finishing second and claiming the final berth the PCCSC offers was the University of Hawaii Rainbows, with a 6-2 overall record. The Rainbows opened the regatta with an undefeated first round, handing Stanford their only loss of the regatta. This pivotal race was what made the difference over rival, UC Santa Barbara.

Background: The Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) is the governing authority for sailing competition at colleges and universities throughout the United States and in some parts of Canada. There are seven Conferences that schedule and administer regattas within their established geographic regions, with ICSA hosting two national championships in the fall (singlehanded, match racing) and three national championships in the spring (team, women’s, coed). collegesailing.org