George Washington University Athletics
George Washington University
Admirals Cup
Sailing Qualifies for ICSA Women's Nationals
4/23/2018 12:00:00 AM | Sailing
The GW women's sailing team successfully qualified for the ICSA National Championship this weekend by finishing fifth at the MAISA Spring Women's Championship at Old Dominion.
Needing a top nine finish in the 15-team fleet to move on to nationals, the Colonials got off to a slow start amidst tricky conditions and were in ninth place after the completion of race seven in A Division. That's when GW turned it around, as Riley Legault and Alexandra Fayer won race 7B to spur a run that saw the Colonials take top-three finishes in seven of the last 10 races and move up to comfortably qualify for nationals with their fifth-place finish. At the completion of the regatta, All-MAISA honors were handed out with skippers Legault and Miranda Bakos both earning a spot on the first team.
"We obviously wanted to do better but at the end of the day we accomplished our goal of finishing top nine and moving on to nationals," said head coach Billy Martin. "We're happy to still have skin in the game even though we didn't have our best event. We struggled at the beginning but showed a lot of heart and resiliency and were able to rally strong at the end of the event in what were really tricky conditions. I'm happy with how everyone worked together as a team through adversity and I think that will pay off in how we do in the next stage. We'll really prove what we're made of at nationals."
GW was also in action at a pair of coed regattas, taking second and third at the Arrigan Memorial Regatta at Georgetown and 14th at the Admirals Cup at Kings Point.
The Colonials return to action this weekend with another round of championship racing with the Americas Trophy at St. Mary's. GW needs a top-nine finish to move on to coed nationals.
