May 30, 2007

Seahawks Win National Team Sailing

St. Mary's College of Maryland has won their second Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) national championship in less than a week as competition for the ICSA/APS Team Race National Championship (May 27-29) wrapped up today at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Just days ago, the Lady Seahawks dominated the racing to win the ICSA Women's National Championship at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, Va.). With the action relocated to Annapolis, the US Naval Academy is hosting the final two events in college sailing's spring tripleheader (the ICSA/Gill Coed National Championship will run May 30-June 1). This is the fourth ICSA Team Race National Championship (2004, 2000, 1999) won by the St. Mary's Seahawks.

Team Racing By The Numbers - Conference eliminations qualified 14 colleges, representing seven North American conferences, to compete for the ICSA/APS National Team Race Championship. The event pits each college's three-boat team against another's in a round-robin series of matches.

At the conclusion of Round 1 the top-four schools, respectively, St. Mary's College, College of Charleston (Charleston, S.C.), Yale University (New Haven, Conn.) and Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.) from Group 1, and Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.), University of South Florida (St. Petersburg, Fla.), Hobart & William Smith Colleges (Geneva, N.Y.) and the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis, Md.) from Group 2, advanced to the Gold Rounds, while the remaining six schools sailed the Consolation Round.

St. Mary's was undefeated (7-0) at the conclusion of Gold Round 1, while Dartmouth, Hobart and Yale all posted win-loss records of 4-3. As the competition intensified in Gold Round 2, St. Mary's lost three races - to Dartmouth, Harvard and Hobart - but remained first heading to the final four with on an 11-3 record. That set the stage for St. Mary's to face three Ivy League schools as Harvard and Hobart, each 6-1 in Gold Round 2, were joined by Yale (5-2) when Dartmouth failed to progress on their (7-7) compiled record in the Gold Rounds.

"When the top-eight are all really good, it's not unlike the NCAA basketball championships," St. Mary's Varsity Coach Adam Werblow said in explaining the Seahawks' losses in Gold Round 2. "Once you make that level, any team can take a race. We wound up on the backside and had some problems with boat covering. When you are sailing against these top teams, if you don't do things precisely and well, then you lose. At the end we knew going into the final four that the only race that mattered for us was the last one."

Skipper and crew on the water for St. Mary's were juniors John Loe (Baton Rouge, La.) with Meredith Nordhem (Chicago, Ill.); freshman Jesse Kirkland '10 (Warwick, Bermuda) with graduating senior Hilary Wiech (St. Michael's, Md.); and graduating senior John Howell '07 (Galesville, Md.) with junior Maggie Lumkes (River Forest, Ill.).

The final four championship standings: St. Mary's (12-5) followed by Yale (11-6), Hobart (11-5) and Harvard (9-7).

To learn more about ICSA, visit www.collegesailing.org

Up Next: The final ICSA championship for the year -- the ICSA/Gill Coed National Championship (May 30-June 1) - hosted at The U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis, Md.). Details on the championships are online at www.collegesailing.org/nas/spring07/teamcoed/

St. Mary's College of Maryland is ranked one of the best liberal arts colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review and Kiplinger's. With roots going back to 1840, SMCM is the state's only public honors college, offering the academic excellence of a top private college with the openness and affordability of public education.