A kilometer into the first heat of women’s rowing at the Ivy League Women’s Rowing Championship in Camden, N.J., Dartmouth’s varsity eight was neck-and-neck with rival Brown University. Already at a quick pace, the crew unlocked another gear to finish second in the heat, eight seconds ahead of Brown.
“It was pretty special to watch them do that,” head coach John Graves said. “I don’t think they did it by looking across or trying to beat Brown. I think they did it by just being relentlessly simple in their process.”
The varsity eight had another impressive outing in the Grand Final with a fourth-place finish, their best in the Ivy League championship since 2014. The overall team, composed of the varsity eight, second varsity eight and varsity four boats, also finished fourth in the standings with 27 points, trailing only Yale University, Princeton University and Brown.
One of the secrets to Saturday’s success, according to varsity eight rower Áine Ley ’26, was staying internal and confident within the boat.
“We did a very good job rowing our own race,” Ley said. “It can be really easy to get caught up in what’s going on in other boats, and so we were all really proud of how we handled that and it gave us even more confidence going into the final.”
Three days after their strong performance in the championship, the team huddled together in Floren 105 to watch the NCAA selection show, where 22 programs were selected for the Division 1 NCAA rowing championship in West Windsor, N.J. Nine teams automatically qualified for winning their respective conferences, so the Big Green was fighting for one of 13 at-large bids, selected based on the season’s results. Seven minutes into the show, Dartmouth appeared on the screen as the third at-large bid, and Floren erupted. Women’s rowing is going to nationals for the first time in 14 years.
“Seeing Darmouth’s name up there was surreal,” Aarushi Jain ’25 said. “I feel like we talked about it as a goal in the fall, and I honestly don’t think any of us thought that it was achievable in just the span of a year, so being able to see a reward for all the work that we put in was just really cool.”
Graves, who is in his second year coaching the women’s rowing program, emphasized his pride in seeing the team work all season to make their distant goal a reality.
“I’ve been amazed at how emotional it makes me,” Graves said. “Just knowing how much work they put into it, how much work I put into it, how much work the other coaches put into it — to see that work pay off in such a public way hits hard.”
Since Graves took charge in the 2023 season, the team has changed its mindset and culture. Aside from improving their technical skills and fitness, the rowers grew in confidence and “bought in” to the idea — and process — of reaching nationals.
“In my time at Dartmouth, he [Graves] was the first person to say, ‘we should be aspiring to go to NCAAs,’” Ley said. “The team has bought into that idea and realized, as coach says, ‘nothing will work unless we do.’”
According to Cece Plass ’25, the senior class has been largely responsible for the culture shift over the last two years. With three years of experience on the team, the seniors emphasized the balance between fun and hard work this season. The team reached their highest level of success in the past decade while maintaining their tight-knit culture.
“Our team has blended this social atmosphere where we hang out with our best friends every day at practice with the high standard of being a Dartmouth student athlete,” Plass said. “We’ve done a really good job of having fun doing the hard things.”
Graves echoed the gratitude towards the leaders on the team.
“Shifting culture is really hard, intentional work, and it is something that you can’t do without some amazing leaders within the team,” Graves said. “The most rewarding thing for me is watching them have their actions truly align with their goals and hold each other accountable. It has been amazing to watch.”
While the team has already had a successful season, they will get the opportunity to shine one final time at the national championships this weekend.
“We want to leave the weekend feeling like we left it all out there,” Ley said. “If we all feel like we had our best races, we’ll all hopefully be pretty happy walking away.”
The national championships will cap off an incredible 50th year of the program. Though only three boats will represent Dartmouth this weekend, hundreds of alumni, coaches and staff have brought the program to this occasion.
“I owe it to all the women that came before us,” Plass said. “It’s so cool to say that the future of Dartmouth women’s rowing will look back on this year and view it as one where we really pushed this team ahead and went to NCAAs.”
