ICSA SPERRY TOP-SIDER WOMEN’S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Dartmouth Wins and Deirdre Lambert earns Quantum Women’s College Sailor of the Year Annapolis, Md. (May 30, 2014) – Today was the last day of racing for the Sperry Top-Sider Women’s National Championship on the Severn River at the U.S. Naval Academy. Eighteen women’s collegiate teams raced for the Gerald C. Miller Trophy and Dartmouth College came out the victor for the second year in a row.
The day started with a short on shore postponement while the race officials waited for the breeze to fill in. The temperature was in the 60s with cloudy skies. A light northerly at around 4 knots filled in and racing got underway. After a set and a half the breeze died again and the teams went in for a long lunch break. By the afternoon temperatures rose to about 70 degrees with more sun in the sky and the winds shifted to the east remaining light and eventually shifted to a southerly direction, which was stable, but light again around 5 knots.
NCAA Women’s Sailing: Sperry Top-Sider National Championship
Today the divisions swapped boats again, A-division sailed in Z420s and B-division sailed in FJs. The sailors completed seven races today in both divisions on windward leeward courses with 4 legs for a total of 17 races in each division for the championship. The race committee was able to start the last race of the day minutes before the 5 p.m. racing time limit.
Going into today’s racing Yale University and Dartmouth were neck-and-neck with only three points separating them. The U.S. Naval Academy trailed the top two by 35 points and behind Navy, the other teams were more condensed, which allowed for movement on the scoreboard today. Most notable was Old Dominion University who moved up from ninth place yesterday to finish just one point behind Navy in fourth place.
The home and host team, Navy, won the Ann Campbell Trophy for finishing the event in third place. The Navy women sailed consistently and were a well-balanced team. Sailing for Navy was Mary Hall ’15 with Elizabeth Morrison ‘14 in A-division and Marissa Lihan ’14 with Emma Ferris ’15 and Megan Hough ’16 in B-division.
After an all-day battle, Yale finished second winning the New England Women’s Trophy. It was not until the fourth to last race of the day that Yale gave up their lead. They battled back and forth with Dartmouth and even had some leads in B-division, but they could not hang on to them.
“Dartmouth’s A-division was pretty much unbeatable today,” says Bill Healy, assistant coach for Yale, “We tried to stay as close as we could.” Yale’s A-division suffered a few over-early starts and while Healy says their B-division did a fabulous job, in the end it was not enough to take home the win.
“It is bittersweet for us,” Healy says of finishing second, “Especially for the seniors who have worked hard for four years and wanted the win.” Sailing for Yale was Morgan Kiss ’15 with Katherine Gaumond ’15 in A-division and Marlena Fauer ’14 with Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 and Charlotte Belling ’16 in B-division.
Winning the Women’s Championship title and the Gerald C. Miller Trophy for the second year in a row is Dartmouth. Deirdre Lambert ’15 with Avery Plough ’14 sailed in A-division and Kelsey Wheeler ’14 and Lizzie Guynn ’16 sailed in B-division. Lambert and Plough won four of the last five races helping their team to stay well ahead of Yale.
“We knew it was going to be a really tough day. Conditions were changing all of the time as they had been the whole regatta,” John Stork III, co-head coach for Dartmouth says. “There were two things we knew we had to do well. We had to start well and we had to be fast. So if we could control our destiny off of the starting line and be fast then we knew we would have a shot,” Stork explains about going for the win today.
Dartmouth did not talk about winning the event for the second year in a row, but Stork confessed, “We quietly all believed it was possible.”
This will be Stork’s last year coaching college sailing and he says, “It’s been an amazing run with these girls and with this team and it’s something I am going to cherish for the rest of my life.”
Lambert, Wheeler and Guynn were also part of the pairings that won the championship last year. This is the fourth time that Dartmouth has won the Sperry Top-Sider Women’s National Championship they also won in 1992, 2000 and 2013.
After racing awards were presented at the Robert Crown Center for the top teams and also for the first place finishers in each division. Deirdre Lambert ’15 and Avery Plough ’14 from Dartmouth won the Madeleine Trophy, awarded to the low-point A- division team. They finished with 60 points total, 41 points ahead of the second place pairing.
Marlena Fauer ’14 with Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 and Charlotte Belling ’16 from Yale won the Judy Lawson Trophy, awarded to the low-point B-division team. They finished with 89 points total, 20 points ahead of the second place pairing.
For full results visit the event website: http://2014nationals.collegesailing.org/. To view or purchase photos from today’s racing and awards visit: www.ebrianschneider.com.
Women’s Final Overall Results 1. Dartmouth College, 185 2. Yale University, 190 3. U.S. Naval Academy, 275 4. Old Dominion University, 276 5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 286 6. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 291 7. Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 296 8. College of Charleston, 305* 9. University of Rhode Island, 305* 10. Boston College, 328* 11. Eckerd College, 328* 12. Stanford University, 336 13. Bowdoin College, 359 14. Brown University, 381 15. University of Hawaii, 414 16. Georgetown University, 417 17. University of South Florida, 419 18. University of Wisconsin, 423 * Head-to-head tiebreaker
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SPERRY TOP-SIDER WOMEN’S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS—Day Three
Annapolis, Md. (May 29, 2014) – The Sperry Top-Sider Women’s National Championship continued today on the Severn River at the U.S. Naval Academy. Eighteen collegiate teams advanced from the previous two days of competing in the semi-finals to make it to the finals racing. The teams are vying for the national title and the Gerald C. Miller Trophy.
Racing got underway at 9:30 a.m. The conditions today were quite different from what the women experienced in the semi-finals. It was cooler with temperatures in the high 50s and low 60s, clouds and steady rain. The winds were out of the northeast at 5-10 knots.
The sailors are competing in both FJs and Z420s on windward leeward courses with four legs. Ten races were completed today in both A-division and B-division with eight races left in each division to complete the regatta.
Today A-division sailed FJs and B-division sailed Z420s. Tomorrow the divisions will swap boats. Principal race officer, Gary Bodie, and his race committee team of Pat Dawson, Jim Wojcik, Tim McGee, Taran Teague, Dan Corzenwit, Frieda Wildey and the Navy Sailing Team along with judges, Don Becker and Morgan Wilson kept great racing going all day. No protests were filed.
“Today [the conditions] was very difficult to say the least,” Bill Healy says, assistant coach of Yale University. “It was one of those days that you felt terrible after finishing a race, but things looked good at the end of the day,” he explains. Yale is sitting in first place after today’s racing. They just won the Western fleet in semi-finals and are continuing to sail with good momentum.
“We are practicing what we’ve been doing all year and we made a few less mistakes than other competitors out there today,” Healy says. Dartmouth College, the defending champion of this event, is only three points behind Yale with 113 points.
“Tomorrow we will keep an eye on Dartmouth, but we have to sail the course a lot harder than we have been,” Healy says. Sailing for Yale is Morgan Kiss ’15 with Katherine Gaumond ’15 in A-division and Marlena Fauer ’14 with Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 and Charlotte Belling ’16 in B-division.
“We are feeling okay after today,” Ian Burman says, head coach of the Naval Academy. Navy is in third place with 148 points. “We had a few bad races keeping us out of the top two, so we are hoping to move up tomorrow,” he says. The weather prediction for tomorrow is for light wind out of the north, which is a shifty direction at Navy.
“We are focusing on staying calm and steady tomorrow,” Burman says, “If we do what we are capable of, we will do well.” Sailing for Navy is Mary Hall ’15 with Elizabeth Morrison ’14 in A-division and Marissa Lihan ’14 with Emma Ferris ’15 in B-division.
Racing is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow. No race can begin after 5 p.m. The day will culminate in an awards ceremony scheduled right after racing outside of the Robert Crown Center at the Naval Academy.
The top three women’s teams will be presented with the Gerald C. Miller Trophy for first place, the New England Women’s Trophy for second place and the Ann Campbell Trophy for third place. The Quantum Women’s College Sailor of the Year will also be awarded to a female sailor who has consistently performed at the highest competitive level in the 2013-2014 season.
Top Nine Teams, Finals Day 1
1. Yale University, 110
2. Dartmouth College, 113
3. U.S. Naval Academy, 148
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 157
5. College of Charleston, 163
6. Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 167
7. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 173
8. University of Rhode Island, 177
9. Old Dominion University, 189
SPERRY TOP-SIDER WOMEN’S SEMI-FINAL CHAMPIONSHIP—DAY TWO
Annapolis, Md. (May 28, 2014) – Racing continued today on the Severn River at the U.S. Naval Academy in the second day of the Sperry Top-Sider Women’s Semi-Finals. Twenty-eight collegiate sailing teams from across the nation qualified to compete in these semi-finals to determine the top 18 teams who will advance to the finals, which begin tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. The 28 teams are divided into two fleets of 14 teams, Western and Eastern Semi-Final groups, the top nine from each fleet will make up the 18 teams who compete in the final.
Today the fleets swapped the type of boats that they were sailing from yesterday, so the Western fleet sailed in Z420s and the Eastern fleet sailed in FJs. The courses were again windward leeward with four legs.
The conditions in the morning were light winds around six miles per hour from a north northwesterly direction and temperatures in the high 70s with pretty high humidity. As the day progressed there was some cloud cover and a brief light rain. The temperature hovered around 80 degrees. The wind continued to come from a northwesterly direction averaging about five miles per hour, until the end of the day when the wind got very light and variable and shifted to a southeasterly direction.
The deadline for racing today was 5 p.m. and the light winds at the end of the day made it difficult to squeeze in the racing before the deadline. The Western Semi-Final completed five races today in both A and B-divisions for a total of 11 races for the event. The Eastern Semi-Final had two more races to sail in B-division this morning, so they completed six races today and four races in A-division for a total of 10 races for the event.
The University of Rhode Island (URI) was leading the Eastern fleet after yesterday’s racing, but today they fell to second place on a head-to-head tiebreaker with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“It was exciting until the last B-division race,” Matt Cohen, co-head coach of MIT says. “Our B-division was a clutch pairing for the whole event, but especially today,” he says. “They knew that they had to finish with at least one boat between them and URI in the last race,” Cohen explains. The girls accomplished this on the last quarter of the run when Eckerd College finished behind MIT and in front of URI in the race.
Cohen attributes this success to the confidence that their B-division sailors have gained over the course of this year, Hanna Vincent ’14 and Lisa Sukharev-Chuyan ’16. Also sailing well for MIT in A-division was Chloe Lepert ’15, Rosalind Lesh ’16, Iris Xu ’14 and Elizabeth Zhang ’16.
“Doing well yesterday and today has given us the confidence to move into the finals knowing that we can play with top competition,” says Cohen.
URI finished behind MIT on a tiebreaker and 16 points behind them in third is Boston College, who beat Old Dominion University in a head-to-head tiebreaker.
Yale University was leading the Western fleet after yesterday’s racing and they were able to hold on to their lead today.
“Our goal was to sail as well as we could in this event and move into the finals,” Bill Healy, assistant coach of Yale University says. “We really wanted to work on getting to know the Z420s and I feel that we did that,” he says.
“We learned a lot in this event and in the finals we will sail smarter beats and not be too risky when the conditions are light and variable, as they have been,” says Healy.
Dartmouth College finished 23 points behind Yale with 92 points and ten points behind them is the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with 102 points.
The scoreboard is wiped clean for the finals tomorrow, so teams will start fresh in the new event. The Sperry Top-Sider Women’s National Championship finals racing will begin tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. The top 18 teams will be competing for the Gerald C. Miller Trophy over the next two days.
After racing today a dinner was held at the Naval Academy for the competitors and awards for the first two days of racing were presented including the US Sailing Grit Award for the two last teams to qualify for the finals in ninth place, Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the University of Wisconsin.
The Graham Hall award for Outstanding Service by a College Sailing Professional was also presented to Scott Ikle, head coach of the Hobart and William Smith sailing teams. Ikle has been involved with college sailing since the 1980s as both a competitor and coach. He has served as a director for the Mid-Atlantic conference for 15 years and has worked to ensure fair sailing, develop great talent for the conference and also help make the profession of a college sailing coach better.
Final Nine Teams Eastern Semi-Final: 1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 90* 2. University of Rhode Island, 90* 3. Boston College, 106* 4. Old Dominion University, 106* 5. Stanford University, 108 6. Brown University, 121 7. Georgetown University, 125 8. Eckerd College, 128 9. Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 137 *Head-to-head tiebreaker
Final Nine Teams Western Semi-Final: 1. Yale University, 69 2. Dartmouth College, 92 3. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 102 4. College of Charleston, 110 5. U.S. Naval Academy, 132 6. University of Hawaii, 152 7. Bowdoin College, 159 8. University of South Florida, 163 9. University of Wisconsin, 167
SPERRY TOP-SIDER WOMEN’S SEMI-FINAL CHAMPIONSHIP—DAY ONE
Annapolis, Md. (May 27, 2014) – The 2014 Intercollegiate Sailing Association’s series of National Championships began today on the Severn River in Annapolis, Md. at the U.S. Naval Academy with the Sperry Top-Sider Women’s Semi-Final Championship. The semi-finals are the precursor and qualifying event for the Women’s National Championship slated to begin Thursday, May 29 at 9:30 a.m.
The semi-finals are divided into two fleets, an Eastern and Western semi-final, each with fourteen teams from across the nation. The top nine teams from each fleet will advance to the finals on Thursday. The competitors are racing in FJs and Z420s on windward-leeward four leg courses.
At the start of racing today the temperature was already warm at around 80 degrees with sunny skies and light winds from the west around 3 mph. Temperatures rose to the mid-eighties as the day progressed and the winds gradually shifted from the west northwest to the south southwest, but stayed pretty light and variable at around four to seven mph with gusts a little higher allowing for the sailors to hike at times. The sunny skies gave way to clouds and some rain at times. By the end of the day thunderstorms were threatening to hit the racecourse.
Racing began at around 10 a.m. and finished up just before 6 p.m. The Eastern fleet sailed Z420s today and A-division completed six races, while B-division only completed four races due to the threatening weather. The Western fleet sailed FJs today and both A and B-division completed six races. Tomorrow the fleets will swap boats and Eastern will sail FJs and Western Z420s.
“No two races were the same today,” Skip Whyte, head coach for the University of Rhode Island (URI) says of the conditions today. URI is leading the Eastern fleet after today’s racing and Whyte attributes their success today to having a great group on the water who made good decisions. “The conditions were so variable that everyone was in a tough spot at times,” he says. “The girls would recover from dismal beginnings, which was possible because of the volatility of the winds.
Sailing for URI is Rachel Bryer ’17 with Kaity Norton ’15 and Fiona Christie ’17 in A-division and Chanel Miller ’14 with Nellie Hamilton ’16 in B-division. Whyte says they are pleased with their racing today, but they know that the racing is only going to get more difficult as the event progresses.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology is only three points behind URI with 46 points and Stanford University and Brown University trail the two front-runners with 56 points.
Yale University is leading the Western semi-final 14 points ahead of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in second place and 18 points ahead of the defending champion of the Sperry Top-Sider Women’s National Championship, Dartmouth College.
“We excelled today by connecting the dots,” Brian Swingly, head coach of the Coast Guard Academy says. “We are still working on little things as we move towards the finals,” he says, “one being fleet positioning, especially with how shifty the conditions can be.” Although it was a long day today, Swingly says the Coast Guard sailors are focused, as this is the pinnacle event of the season.
Sailing for the Coast Guard Academy is Nikole Barnes ’17 with Justine Morrison ’13 in A-division and Kayla Ellis ’16 with Christina Frost ’16 in B-division.
The scores are close for the top nine teams in both fleets and the racing continues tomorrow starting at 9:30 a.m. Tomorrow will be the last day of racing in the semi-finals portion of the championship. The top 18 teams will be determined and they will advance to the finals on Thursday.
Top Nine Teams Eastern Semi-Final, Day 1: 1. University of Rhode Island, 43 2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 46 3. Stanford University, 56* 4. Brown University, 56* 5. Eckerd College, 58 6. Boston College, 59 7. Georgetown University, 61 8. University of Minnesota, 70 9. Old Dominion University, 72 *Head-to-head tiebreaker
Top Nine Teams Western Semi-Final, Day 1: 1. Yale University, 41 2. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 55 3. Dartmouth College, 59 4. College of Charleston, 61 5. U.S. Naval Academy, 77 6. University of Hawaii, 78 7. Fordham University, 81* 8. Bowdoin College, 81* 9. Cornell University, 86
