Posts: 12,236
Threads: 631
Joined: Dec 1969
At this point, the varsity had made the A final, but both the 2V and the V4 were in their respective B finals, so the team points finish was not going to be anything spectacular. What remained to be seen was how the varsity would finish (heavily weighting the team championships) and how much was left in the other two boats' tanks.
The V4 B final (places 7-12) was the first race of the day (8am PDT). At the 500m mark, Washington State held a three second lead (which is a "solid" lead in rowing, roughly similar to a 7-9 pt basketball lead), with Stanford and kal battling it out for second less than a half-second apart. By the halfway point (1000m), WSU had scraped out about another second more ahead of Stanford, but kal had closed to within two sec of WSU. kal closed in to within a second of WSU at the 1500m, and Stanford had slipped another second off of WSU. In the last 500m, WSU laid down a big sprint and put kal away. Stanford could only make up two sec on kal in the last 500m and finished about 1.2 sec behind kal for third place (5.1 sec off of WSU) in the B final and 9th place overall.
The 2V B final (places 7-12) was pretty dramatic, as befitting a high-level race where raw power alone can't decide the outcome. Well, it was dramatic for everyone except for the wire-to-wire winning Cardinal crew, who kept the bow of their boat ahead of everyone else. Still, when you're leading the race and you can't quite break free of the pack, it can make for a nervous race. Not so for Stanford, who had a 0.43 sec lead at 500m, a 0.5 sec lead at 1000m, a 2.42 sec lead at 1500m, and 3.12 sec lead at the finish line. But let's talk about about the rest of the field for kicks--at 500m, it was Virginia only a few seats down to the Cardinal (two lanes over). At 1000m, it was Indiana taking Virginia's place a half-second behind Stanford, making a up a full second on Virginia after their start. The Cavs were in third and not in bad shape, only about 0.8 sec behind Stanford. The third 500m was pretty amazing as four crews posted faster third 500m split times than their respective second 500m split times--a rather difficult task! (Imagine the effort of a high-level 1.25 mile sprint...and negative splitting the middle 50%.) Stanford had the biggest negative split, going 1.2 sec faster in their third 500m! Indiana was following 2.4 sec behind, and Virginia was only a half-second behind the Hoosiers. In fact, the whole field was within 2 sec (from second through sixth place) at the third 500m mark, tighter than the field at halfway.
And then the last 500m sprint happened. Stanford *continued* to get faster and laid down a crushing 1:37.3s last 500m split (another 2 sec faster than their third 500m split) to stay ahead of the rest of the field, which surged...but that field did not include Indiana or Virginia, who limped to a 5th and 6th place finish, respectively. Instead, it was Texas (with a 1:35.8s split) with a monstrous sprint that took second behind Stanford, followed by Wisconsin and Michigan. Truly an impressive race for Stanford, who dared Indiana and Virginia to match their early speed and then continued to increase that challenge through the race.
Finally, the varsity grand final, primary determinant of who would win it all. Going into the race, Ohio State merely had to place third or better to clinch the championship, which would result in the first threepeat in NCAA women's rowing history. kal was next in contention for the team points trophy and would have needed to win (and have some other teams beat Ohio State). And the race started out just in that fashion, with Ohio State and kal virtually neck-and-neck through the 500m mark, Stanford and Virginia duking it out a second behind them, and Texas following a second behind the Cardinal/Cavs duel (Washington was yet another second behind Texas). By the halfway mark, Ohio State had pushed out to a one second lead ahead of kal, who had 1.7 sec up on Virginia, who in turn had pushed out to an 0.8 sec lead over Stanford. This was the beginning of the end for the Cardinal, who turned in the slowest third 500m time of the field (bafflingly enough--a missed stroke somewhere?) and slipped to 2.2 sec behind third-place Virginia and now about 7 sec behind frontrunner Ohio State. At the line, it was Ohio State with their threepeat solidly claimed, kal in second place, Virginia in third, and then a very hard-charging Texas boat in fourth (second-fastest last 500m sprint) who beat out Stanford by 0.5 sec at the line. Stanford finished fifth, a half-second ahead of the Washington Huskies, who trailed the entire race.
Michigan was ranked #6 going into the regatta, but it was Stanford at 6th place in team points (with 100), followed by Texas in 7th (99 points; they were ranked #11 pre-regatta). All the programs ahead of Stanford finished nearly as predicted with the exception of the top-three's ordering--Brown was knocked out of the varsity eight grand final and had no shot at the championship, which must have been bitter pill to swallow for the #1 ranked team (ended up #3). Ohio State proved their doubters (and their #3 ranking) wrong, and Washington traded up one place with Virginia to finish fourth. kal was the runner-up for the third consecutive year, and that was with their new head coach, Al Acosta, who was the Stanford lightweight women's head coach last year. (Al, a kal rowing alum, replaced Dave O'Neill, the new Texas head coach.)
In a stunning display of parity, only Ohio State and Washington this year qualified all three boats to their respective A finals (which is how a weak Washington showing in all three A finals beat out Virginia, whose 2V finished last in the B final). Washington's boat finished 6th, 3rd, and 4th in the V8, 2V8, and V4 events, respectively. Ohio State finished 1st, 2nd, and 5th places in those events. Note that Stanford beat out Texas by only one point in the final team standings. Although Stanford beat Texas by two places in the V4 and one place in the 2V, the Longhorns almost came back by beating Stanford by one place in the V8, still truly the marquee event. This kind of parity (deep, competitive racing) across three events, however, means that teams will have to seriously consider their 2V's speed if they want a shot at next year's team trophy.
Even though the Cardinal outperformed expectations set by rankings, the 2V's 0.145 sec margin to WSU to miss out on the A final (very close loss) and the varsity's unexpected 5th place showing in the grand final (after having been seeded as the #3 overall varsity eight) will weigh on the minds of the underclass rowers and coaches who have next season already in mind. Those are the "what could have been" takeaways from the regatta, but the season should be remembered as one where great adversity was overcome and expectations were surpassed. (Also, meaningful Directors' Cup points were scored!)
Go Stanford :)
