George Washington University Athletics
George Washington University
College Sailing / Gill Coed Nationals
GW Sailing Finishes 17th at Coed Nationals
6/4/2016 12:00:00 AM | Sailing
SAN DIEGO -- Concluding the best season in program history, the GW Sailing team took a 17th place finish in its first ever appearance at the College Sailing / Gill Coed Nationals.
GW's team of Brendan Shanahan and Miranda Bakos in A Division, and Kai Friesecke and Riley Legault in B Division, put together a number of good results with five top-10 finishes on Friday. But like Thursday, the racing was neck-and-neck with the top teams in the nation.
"The racing was once again super close," said head coach John Pearce. "There were many times when the first place boat and the 18th place boat were separated by just a few boat lengths. We squeaked out a lot of good races but we also found ourselves at the other end of the spectrum with good races that got away from us and turned into deeper scores."
GW finishes a season that saw it achieve national rankings in both the coed and women's poll, win two women's MAISA Championships, finish 10th in women's nationals and take 17th in it's first ever coed nationals appearance.
"We learned a lot and we're really excited to take this experience back to the rest of the team starting next year and know what we're preparing for in college sailing nationals in Chicago in 2017," said Pearce. "I think the team has a much better idea now what it takes to fully prepare for that, and a lot more maturity and experience to take advantage of that opportunity next year."
