Although a photo finish didn’t end the NCAA Championship hopes for Stanford women’s rowing this past weekend, one did set the Cardinal off on the wrong course as the varsity eight finished fourth in its semifinal on the way to 10th place overall.

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The Cardinal women’s crew focuses on each stroke in a match against cross-Bay rival Cal. Stanford ended its best season since 2003 over the Memorial Day weekend, finishing 10th at the NCAA Championships. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/7619
Bernard Bluhm

The Cardinal women’s crew focuses on each stroke in a match against cross-Bay rival Cal. Stanford ended its best season since 2003 over the Memorial Day weekend, finishing 10th at the NCAA Championships.

After a slow start, Stanford was able to keep its Grand Final hopes alive by winning the repechage in Friday’s first day of competition. But earlier on, it found its hopes nearly shot. With the top three finishers in each of Friday’s three heats advancing to Saturday’s semifinals, the Cardinal was in a triple photo-finish with Notre Dame and Dartmouth for the final two semifinal bids.

Yale (6:33.40) took first by just over a second in Stanford’s heat, and after an hour delay, race officials announced that, although separated by only half a second, the Fighting Irish (6:35.67) had taken second, just ahead of Dartmouth (6:35.90) and the Cardinal (6:36.12).

Stanford returned to the water, though, battling the other six teams that failed to qualify for the final three semifinal spots in the repechage. This time, however, there was much less drama at the finish as Stanford (6:35.98) notched first by just under a second, surpassing Tennessee (6:36.91). Princeton (6:37.41) finished third to join the Cardinal and the Lady Vols in the semifinals.

On Saturday, however, Stanford’s fortunes again turned for the worse, as did the weather. Races were delayed an hour as fog rolled across the course, and when the weather cleared somewhat, the second of two semifinals proved another tightly contested affair.

While the first four boats in the heat were all within a boat length of each other, Stanford was struggling far behind. Southern California (6:26.57) led the way ahead of Ohio State (6:26.77) and Virgina (6:28.65) to claim berths in Sunday’s Grand Final. Beyond that, Notre Dame (6:29.57) barely failed to qualify, finishing fourth ahead of Tennessee (6:33.65). Stanford was nearly six seconds behind that, though, clocking in at 6:39.36.

The previous semifinal heat had Yale (6:23.93), Brown (6:28.84) and Princeton (6:28.87) locking up the first three spots for the Grand Final by defeating Harvard (6:29.37), Dartmouth (6:31.78) and Minnesota (6:32.11).

That set the stage for Sunday’s Petite Final, where the Cardinal and the other fourth-, fifth- and sixth-place finishers in the semifinals competed to determine the seventh through 12th-place finishers in the first varsity eights. In a close finish, Minnesota (6:43.53) edged out Dartmouth (6:43.95) in the final moments of the race to take the Petite final.

And while it looked as if Stanford would take third, the eight ended up being passed by a charging Tennessee boat (6:44.32) and finished fourth with a time of (6:45.71). Harvard (6:49.16) and Notre Dame (6:51.04) rounded out the last two spots for the Petite Final.

In the Grand Final, Yale’s first varsity eight continued its dominance, taking first in 6:37.08. It was the first NCAA title in school history for the Bulldogs, whose varsity eight swept first in every race on the weekend and finished the season undefeated.

Following Yale was Ohio State (6:38.77), USC (6:39.45), Brown (6:39.55), Virginia (6:41.50) and Princeton (6:45.38). It was the first time this season that USC’s varsity eight failed to finish on top.

Overall, from the three events (first varsity eight, second varsity eight and third varsity four), Brown captured first for its fifth NCAA women’s rowing title, garnering a final team score of 58 points, including top-four finishes in all three categories. Virginia (54) and Ohio State (52) finished second and third, with Yale (51) and USC (48) rounding out the top five.

Stanford, which did not qualify for the team championships but received an at-large bid to race in the first varsity eight, took 10th overall on the strength of its fourth-place finish in the Petite Final. The finish was an improvement over last year, when the Cardinal varsity eight took 13th at the NCAAs.

Women’s rowing will now look to continue improving next season. This year’s NCAA experience should help as the Cardinal varsity eight currently has only three upperclassmen and just one senior, Carly York.