May 20, 2013
STANFORD, Calif. - After the coed team won the ICSA National Championship semifinals and earned its first No. 1 ranking in program history earlier this month, Stanford is poised to have a major impact at this week's ICSA National Championships. The championship sailing schedule kicks off Tuesday with ICSA Women's National Championships (May 21-24) followed by the coed dinghy and team race national championships this weekend (May 25-27) in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Stanford will enter this week's championships as the top-ranked Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference program in both the women's and coed rankings. The women's and coed teams will both seek their first-ever national championship, while the Cardinal also seeks its first team race championship since 1997.
By placing at the top of its district championship, Stanford will enter the women's event as one of nine finalists, thus bypassing the semifinal round on May 21-22 and competing for the Gerald C. Miller Trophy in the championship round May 23-24. Stanford will compete against the nation's best as one of 14 qualifiers in the team race and one of 18 in the coed race.
The Cardinal will look to ride into the national event with the same momentum it carried at the end of the season, taking home the PCCSC team race, coed and women's trophies.
The Cardinal went 10-0 behind the efforts of Kevin Laube, Carolyn Ortel, Mateo Vargas, Tally Buckstaff, Oliver Toole and Haley Kirk at the PCCSC team race last month.
Stanford blew past the competition at the PCCSC coed race, which saw Toole, Laube, Kirk and Ortel win the A-Division with 24 points and Vargas and Buckstaff take the B-Division with 17 points.
Sarah Mace (A-Division), Katie Riklin (A-Division), Yuki Yoshiyasu (B-Division), Natalie Urban (B-Division) and Michelle Catania (B-Division) represented the Cardinal at the PCCSC women's race, earning the top spot in both divisions.
-- #goStanford --