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Sailors take 3rd at team race nationals
May 29, 2007
ANNAPOLIS, Md.—The Hobart and William Smith sailing team narrowly missed the program's third national championship today, tying for second with Yale and falling to third place on the tie breaker at the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) Team Race Championships hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy.
St. Mary's College was the overall winner with a 12-5 record followed by the Bulldogs and HWS with 11-6 marks. Yale beat the Colleges two out of three times to claim runner-up honors.
"The sailors are a little disappointed, but they shouldn't be," said HWS Head Coach Scott Iklé. "We sailed with passion and pride and left it all out on the water. We can all be proud of them."
On the first day of the three-day event, HWS went 4-2 in group sailing to earn one of the eight spots in the gold round. The remaining six teams sail in a consolation round, eliminated from championship contention.
The Seahawks went through Gold Round 1 with an unscathed 7-0 record, while HWS, Dartmouth, and Yale tied for second with a 4-3 mark. In Gold Round 2, the Colleges and Harvard posted identical 6-1 record to lead the field, followed by Yale (5-2) and St. Mary's (4-3).
The quartet headed to today's championship round with the Seahawks one win better (11-3) than HWS (10-4). St. Mary's fell in its first two races to the Crimson and the Bulldogs, while the Colleges split with the two squads.
The results set up a winner take all show down between HWS and the Seahawks. Win and the Colleges would have the same record as St. Mary's and hold the tie-breaker that would bring a second Team Race title to the shores of the Seneca for the second time in three years.
Unfortunately, the storybook ending favored the Seahawks, who won their second championship in a week following their ICSA Women's Dinghy title.
The event pits each school's three-boat team against another's in a round-robin series of matches. Sailing for Hobart and William Smith were senior skipper Trevor Moore with senior crew Mandi Markee, senior skipper Brian Clancy with sophomore crew Sarah Borup, and junior skipper Jay Mills with sophomore crew Kaitlyn Van Nostrand.
HWS will wrap up the 2006-07 sailing season in the ICSA Coed Dinghy Championships, also hosted by Navy, May 30 through June 1.