The Dartmouth women's varsity eight crew learned Tuesday evening that it came up two inches short of competing at this year's NCAA Championship, May 26-28 in Camden, N.J.
A close call that went against Dartmouth in the petite final at the EAWRC Sprints appears to be one of the major factors behind this disappointing news.
Last Sunday, the Big Green and Syracuse both hit the finish line in a virtual dead heat. The judges went to a videotape of the race, and ultimately awarded second place to the Orange by the length of a bowball, which measures about two inches.
Syracuse earned one of the NCAA bids in varsity eight competition, while Dartmouth did not. Dartmouth had hoped that its wins over Wisconsin and Penn on Sunday would be enough to earn a spot in the competition.
"We're disappointed that we can't go to Nationals," captain Anna McCall-Taylor '00 said. "In the last few weeks, we'd really started to come together and pick up more and more speed relative to our competition."
"It's very frustrating to miss--by a bowball--the chance to see where we could have gone with that. However, I'm glad that we ended the season with such a great, intense race. I'm really proud of this boat. There are great crews going to Nationals and we wish them the best of luck in some exciting racing."
"We were definitely disappointed yesterday to hear the news that we didn't get a bid for nationals," captain Heather Wakeley '00 said.
"We did have an incredible race in the finals at Sprints on Sunday, and it is hard that we lost by so little to Syracuse. The hardest thing though is the fact that those two inches cost us a bid to Nationals."
The decision not to give the Big Green a bid breaks a string of three straight trips to the NCAA championship. Dartmouth rowed as a team in the inaugural championship in 1997 and again in 1998 before sending the varsity eight to the 1999 race.
