Over the last three weeks, the Stanford sailing team swept all three Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference championships, qualifying itself for the national championship events in the women’s, coed and team racing formats.
The Cardinal started off their streak with a narrow win at the Women’s Pacific Coast Championship, where senior skipper Maeve White, sophomore skipper Martina Sly and their crews, sophomore Meg Gerli and freshman Madeline Bubb, narrowly bested a strong UCSB challenge to hold on to the title. After a bit of a rocky start, the team found itself trailing the Gauchos by as many as 17 points early, but it quickly regained its composure to draw within a point by the ninth set of the event.
The four then survived a pitched battle for the final 14 races of the event, taking a narrow lead in the 11th rotation and doing just enough to hold onto it to squeeze out a 3-point victory.
Tensions were lower at the PCCSC Coed Championship two weeks later, where the Cardinal put on a dominant performance to iab their eighth consecutive victory in the event. A collection of five Stanford skippers and crews combined for a runaway win in the event’s A division, while freshman Jacob Rosenberg and junior crews Sarah Placek, Haley Fox and Elena VandenBerg squeezed into first place in the B division.
The wins qualify each team for the national semifinals in their respective events, which take place at the end of May.
Stanford’s team racing squad then completed the trifecta by edging Hawaii at the PCCSC Team Race Championships on April 30. Though the team came up short against the Rainbows in the first round of the double round robin tournament, it recovered in the second leg with a strong 1-2-4 victory in their head-to-head race.
UCSB then assured Stanford’s victory in the event by handing Hawaii a second loss in the final race of the day.
Both Hawaii and the Cardinal qualified for the national team racing finals, which are scheduled for May 28-29.
Stanford will take a quick break before sailing in the Sun and Satisfaction Alumni Team Race this Saturday, where many of the team’s alumni will return to the Stanford Rowing and Sailing Center to compete against the current team and other former college sailors. The Cardinal will then focus all of its energy into preparing for these championship events as the team continues its search for its first ever national title.
Contact Andrew Mather at amather ‘at’ stanford.edu.