After the women's crew team's first varsity boat took third place at Sprints, the team was selected by the NCAA Division I Women's Rowing Committee on Tuesday as one of 16 teams that will compete at the NCAA Championships on May 27-29. Dartmouth will send three boats to the NCAA tournament, two eight-person boats and one four-person boats.
Women's crew captain Emily Dreissigacker '11 said she is uncertain about what to expect at the tournament due to the high level of competition.
"I don't really have any expectations," she said. "I am excited to see how we do. I think we have the potential to do really well."
Reflecting on the season, Dreissigacker said the team got off to an uncertain start with early some upsetting losses but has gained momentum ever since.
"It started off kind of slow, but I think that we have gained so much speed and I think that we will be even faster for the NCAA," she said.
None of the Big Green men's heavyweight varsity boats made it to the Grand Finals at Sprints, but the heavyweights will still compete in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships on June 2-4 in Camden, N.J.
Captain Alex Pujol '11 said the team is looking forward to rowing against tough competition, including the top 13 teams from the East Coast and other highly-ranked West Coast teams, including Stanford University, the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley.
"It's pretty much the best teams in the East against the best teams in the West," he said.
Pujol said the team's season results are comparable to those that have been achieved in past years, as the Big Green's schedule prevents the squad from reaching its full potential until later in the season.
"Overall, the season has fallen in a similar trajectory to past seasons in that we start relatively slow because we start later than other schools but then gain speed faster," he said. "From here forward going to Nationals, we hope to gain speed. We're not satisfied, so we're going to work really hard at nationals."
The Dartmouth lightweight team's first varsity boat finished second overall at the Eastern Sprints to qualify for the IRA National Championships. The Big Green will compete against the other teams that finished in the top seven at Sprints: Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Cornell University, Columbia University and the United States Naval Academy.
The IRA National Championships will include a lightweight-four event this year, but whether or not Dartmouth will participate in this new event has yet to be determined, according to Henson.
The team is thrilled to have a final opportunity to come out on top, according to lightweight captain Phil Henson '11.
"It's kind of like another chance for us to win," he said. "We were pretty happy with how we did at Sprints, but we still want a gold medal."
Henson said he is very pleased with the team's performance this year, since the team was able to score some pivotal end-of-season wins.
"We started off strong against [the University of Delaware] and kept that going. Our goal from the start was to do well at Sprints, and we had a great performance on that day."
Dartmouth's second-place achievement at the Eastern Sprints Championship was a high point of the season, Henson said.
"Winning our heat on Sunday, beating Princeton and establishing ourselves as a great team was a highlight for us," he said.
Henson attributed the lightweight team's success and improvement throughout the season to every team member's hard work and commitment.
"The focus that everybody had, the dedication to the training and the ability to put that out on race day has definitely helped us throughout the season," he said.
One of the most exciting victories for the first varsity lightweight boat this season was its win over Yale at the Durand Cup. Both sides were especially eager to prove they were the better team after last year's inconclusive results, Henson said.
"Last year, we had tied [Yale]," he said. "After the video review, they couldn't declare a winner, which is pretty rare. Winning against them this year was pretty exciting for us."
