The NCAA News - News and Features

May 26, 1997

National Collegiate

Brown, Princeton, Washington top contenders for first NCAA rowing title

Event: 1997 National Collegiate Women's Rowing Championships.

Overview: Champions will be crowned in three events during these inaugural championships. The top-ranked teams heading into the regatta are Brown in the New England region, Princeton in the Mid-Atlantic, Virginia in the Central and Washington in the West .... Brown tops its region in fours and is second in the I and II eights. The Bears' three varsity crews swept races against Harvard, Boston U. and Yale, but the varsity eight lost to Princeton by just over three seconds in the season opener .... Princeton's varsity eight also has beaten Rutgers, Cornell and Yale. The crew's only loss has been to Virginia at Lake Carnegie in late April .... Washington won its sixth straight Windermere Cup championship and is favored to defend its titles in the Pacific-10 Conference championships. The Huskies also swept races against Wisconsin in April. The Badgers are ranked second in the Central region .... Other teams that are highly ranked include Harvard, Rutgers and Washington State. In Divisions II and III, Williams, Connecticut College, William Smith, Ithaca, Marietta, Johns Hopkins, UC Davis and Mills all have either eights or fours ranked tops in their respective regions.

Field: The championships field includes 296 competitors, including at least 38 from Divisions II and III. Eight teams will be selected -- one from each region and four on an at-large basis. Each team is required to field two boats of eight rowers each and one boat of four rowers. In addition, eight eight-woman boats and eight four-woman boats from institutions not represented in the team competition will be selected.

Dates and site: The championships will be May 30-June 2 at Lake Notoma in Sacramento, California, and will be hosted by Cal State Sacramento.

Information/results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915); request numbers are 1847 for bracket/schedule, 5137 for the first day's results, 5137 for the second day's results and 5138 for final day's results. Results also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Championship results will be published in the June 9 issue of The NCAA News.