April 13, 2012
STANFORD, Calif. - Ninth-ranked Stanford women's rowing will head to Gold River to take part in the Lake Natoma Invitational this Saturday and Sunday.
The event, which begins at 8:30 a.m. PT Saturday, will feature nine schools, including the Cardinal, as well as five teams ranked in the USRowing/CRCA Top 20 Poll. In addition to No. 9 Stanford, the event also features No. 8 California, No. 10 Brown, No. 11 Wisconsin and No. 13 Washington State.
Indiana, Sacramento State, Texas and Tulsa will round out the field.
The teams will be broken up into groups of three, with the three schools in each group facing each other in each class of boat.
In this regatta, scoring will be based on performances in the I Eight, II Eight and Four classes, just like the NCAA Championships. The I Eight will be scored in a 9-6-3 (first through third) format, the II Eight in a 6-4-2 format and the Four will be 3-2-1.
After Saturday morning's races, the teams will break, then resume racing in new groups of three for the afternoon.
The teams will then be re-seeded into three new groups for Sunday's action based on Saturday's finishes. The three top finishing teams from Saturday will form one group, the second-best teams from each group form a second group, and the third-place finishers in each group form the final group.
Eight Novice Eight boats will also be entered into competition Saturday, with the top finishers entering into a Grand Final for Sunday.