May 15, 2012
NCAA Rowing Championships Field
STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford women's rowing earned one of 16 bids to the NCAA Championships Tuesday. The national championship event will be held May 25-27 on Lake Mercer in West Windsor, N.J.
All racing at the NCAA Championships will be streamed live at www.ncaa.com.
The Cardinal will participate in the event as a team for the fourth straight year. Stanford won the team NCAA title in 2009 and finished second last year, tying Brown atop the points leaderboard but missing out on the crown by a .05-second loss in the I Eight Grand Final.
Stanford has also captured multiple individual boat medals at the NCAA Championships since 2008. The I Eight claimed NCAA gold in 2009, along with silver in 2008 and bronze in 2011. The II Eight captured its first gold last year, following a silver medal-winning effort in 2010.
The Cardinal I Eight will participate in its fifth consecutive national championship event. The boat qualified for the 2008 event, the final year in which individual boats were selected in addition to qualifying teams.
The NCAA Championships event is composed of 16 teams, all required to field boats in the I Eight, II Eight and Four classes. Stanford is among five Pac-12 schools to qualify for the 2012 field, being joined by California, UCLA, USC and Washington.
2011 team champion Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Princeton, Virginia, Wisconsin and Yale make up the rest of the field.
Each class of boat features three qualifying heats on the opening day of competition. The top three boats in each heat will advance to Saturday's semifinals. Boats that do not qualify for the semifinals in the qualifying heats will go to the repechage race Friday afternoon, where the top three boats in that contest fill out the final three semifinal spots.
The top three finishers in each class' two semifinals on Saturday will advance to Sunday's NCAA Grand Final.
Stanford's I Eight will participate in the third qualifying heat Friday, May 25, at 6:30 a.m. PT. Competing against the Cardinal in that heat will be California, Ohio State, Princeton, Wisconsin and Notre Dame.
The II Eight begins defense of its 2011 national title in its class' second qualifying heat at 7 a.m. PT against Michigan, Yale, Virginia and Notre Dame.
The Four will race in the second heat of its class, taking on Virginia, Washington, UCLA and Michigan at 7:45 a.m. PT.