Co-ed, women's sailing teams put up mixed results ahead of nationals qualifiers

The last two weeks have shown mixed results for the co-ed and women’s sailing teams. The co-ed team managed a win at the Mystic Lake Invitational, hosted by Tufts, on April 10 and finished eighth  at the Thompson Trophy regatta, hosted by the Coast Guard Academy this past weekend. The women’s team finished 16th at Conn. College’s Emily Wick Trophy, on April 10 before notching a sixth-place finish this past weekend at Boston University’s President’s Trophy Intersectional.

Coming off a string of strong performances, the co-ed sailing team came into this weekend’s events with high expectations. The team finished day one in the middle of the pack, the ninth place team of 17. Day two of the race saw the Jumbos advance, albeit only one spot, to finish in eighth. Yale finished in first, with a total of 294 points, which put it well ahead of the pack. Tufts finished with 387, just behind Stanford and St. Mary’s College, which both tied at 381.

“This past weekend we had a pretty good showing,” junior tri-captain Liz Fletcher said. “We’ve been really focused on practice. [Our goal is] definitely to make it to nationals this year. We’re feeling pretty good going into the co-ed qualifier in two weeks.”

The previous weekend, the Jumbos continued their dominance of Mystic Lake this season with their third first-place performance in as many regattas that they've hosted there, this time in the Mystic Lake Team Races. The team's win was propelled by the combinations of senior skipper Casey Gowrie and Fletcher as his crew, senior skipper James Moody and junior crew Caroline Ambros and junior skipper Alex Tong  and sophomore crew Lara Dienemann. The team pulled out an 11-1 record and won a best-of-three sail-off against second-place Brown to secure the win.

“That was a really fun event,” Fletcher said. “We hosted it in our brand-new boats at our new boathouse. It was nice for the other teams to try out the new boats and hang out at the lake for a weekend. It felt really good to come out on top.”

Senior tri-captain Pierre duPont noted the constructive nature of the meet, which both improved team confidence and gave younger sailors some competition experience in a familiar setting.

"It was pretty awesome," duPont said. "We had two teams competing, there was the all-freshman team, which got fifth. We host three or four times a season, but it's really nice to win at home."

The women’s team also competed the last two weekends, most recently at Boston University’s President’s Trophy Invitational. The team finished day one in eighth place and managed to move up two spots on day two, finishing in sixth place out of 17 teams. The team’s success largely rested on the duo of junior skipper MaryClaire Kiernan and senior crew Amanda Sommi, which won two races and finished second in a third. The team finished with 149 points, just one point ahead of seventh place Rhode Island College.

The weekend before that race, the Jumbos struggled at the Emily Wick Trophy. They finished in 16th out of 18 with a score of 182, only beating out Fordham and University of South Florida. The Jumbos finished seventh in the A division and last in B division. Brown won the event, with a score of 83-25 points ahead of any other team.

The women’s team has a tough weekend ahead, with New England Championships at Yale across Saturday and Sunday as the team looks to qualify for nationals, while the co-ed team competes at Kings Point’s Admiral’s Cup as it prepares for its own nationals qualifiers in two weeks.

"We're looking to qualify for both," duPont said. "We were a little bit disappointed last weekend because we didn't qualify for New England Championship, but our goals remain to qualify for nationals and do as well as we can."