George Washington University Athletics
Sailing Advances to Finals at Coed National
5/30/2018 12:00:00 AM | Sailing
NORFOLK, Va. â€" The GW sailing team advanced to the finals of the Coed National Championship for the third straight year after finishing seventh in the Eastern Semifinal which wrapped up Wednesday.
GW moves on to sail amongst the top 18 teams in the nation beginning Thursday and concluding Friday, which will wrap up an 11-day stint for the Colonials that began with the Women's National Championship last Tuesday.
"We sailed a really solid event," said head coach Billy Martin. "We were always in qualifying positions by a safe margin. Everyone performed really well and it was a really well balanced effort between both divisions."
The Colonials took sixth in A Division, as Kai Friesecke skippered all 18 races while Andreea Ranney-Pace and Miranda Bakos split crew duties. They had just two finishes outside the top half of the field and four top-three results in 10 races. In B Division, skippers Andrew Sheerin and Derek Poon-Tip along with crews Matt Homa and Shira Golub contributed to a seventh-place finish.
GW was well within the top-nine qualifying range throughout the regatta, leaving no doubt they'd head to the coed final for the third year in a row. They'll look to improve upon 17th and 12th place finishes in the last two seasons.
"It's a luxury to have a low-stress qualifier like this but we always had a safe margin," said Martin. "I'm happy with how the team played the conditions and the breeze and really executed under pressure. Now the real fun begins; it's that much harder down to the top 18 teams in the country."
Live scoring can be followed here.
