A Georgetown sailing team composed of junior Nevin Snow, sophomore A.J. Reiter and seniors Alex Post and Katia DaSilva won the 2014 World University Match Racing Championships held in Trentino, Italy, this summer.

The event was a part of a series of international competitions known as the World University Championships organized by the International University Sports Federation, the main governmental body for international student-athlete competitions. Occurring every two years, these competitions feature a variety of sports, including cycling, golf, handball and squash; in total, 29 sports are featured in this year’s iteration.

The seventh edition of the Match Racing Championships was held from June 29 to July 5, and was a unique opportunity for the Georgetown sailing program to compete on the world stage. The team qualified to represent the United States after winning the 2013 Intercollegiate Sailing Association Match Race National Championship held in November 2013 in St. Petersburg, Fla. The chance to win for their country motivated Head Coach Mike Callahan and his team to attend the championships.

“It was a pretty cool opportunity, and the kids were all very interested in doing it, so we did some fundraising for it and were able to get university approval to go,” Callahan said.

There were 13 countries from five continents represented at the race; nearly half of the qualifying nations had two separate university entrants. There were a total of 19 teams competing in the open category of the sailing event. Sam Gilmour led the 2012 defending champion Australian team, which was considered the favorite to win this year’s championships as well. Gilmour, ranked 24th in the world at the time in match racing, was just one of Georgetown’s formidable opponents. Several other countries featured their elite sailors, akin to “all-star teams,” according to Callahan.

However, despite the high level of competition posed by the opponents, the Hoyas did not approach the championship with a mindset of simply challenging the opposing teams. In fact, they felt they had a chance to win.

“Our kids had sailed a lot against the competition before … and they knew they could win. We didn’t go in with the expectation of just trying to compete and have a good time,” Callahan said.

This belief was confirmed early on for the Hoyas, as they finished among the top three teams after the initial initial rounds of racing. In the first day alone, Georgetown notched victories over Canada, France and Singapore, with their only loss coming against the heavily-favored Australians. The Hoya sailing team finished the first round with four more victories and easily qualified for the quarterfinals. The opening-round loss proved to be the only setback in an otherwise perfect campaign, as Georgetown went 2-0 in the subsequent rounds, including a victory over Japan in the semifinals and a vindictive performance in their rematch against Australia in the finals.

For Callahan, the world championship run exhibits the type of success and the caliber of athlete the sailing program has produced in the past few years, despite the Hoyas lacking the resources of some of their competitors.

“Georgetown being able to go out — we don’t have the best venue, we don’t even sail the boats that we raced in — it shows a lot of hard work … we’ve got something special here,” Callahan said. “We can compete not just to be the best in the country, but the best in the world.”

This program-wide success was also evident in the Hoyas’ qualification for the three spring match race national championships. Georgetown made it to the final round of the Sperry Top-Sider Women’s National Championship on May 30, placing 16th. The Hoyas then placed fifth out of 16 teams at the APS Team Race National Championship on June 2. Georgetown sailing had its highest finish at the Gill Coed National Championships on June 6, placing second behind Yale University and thus winning the Oxford University Trophy. This was Georgetown’s second year in a row as the runner-up, and the seventh straight year it has finished in the top five, winning in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

As for individual success, Snow was named a Coed All-American and was one of two finalists for the Everett B. Morris Trophy, which is awarded annually by the ICSA to the college sailor of the year. Two of his teammates from the World University Championships, DaSilva and Post, were named a Crew All-American and Honorable Mention Coed All-American, respectively. Coming off the heels of this success, Georgetown sailing is looking forward to another productive year, and perhaps another chance to represent the United States at the 2016 World University Match Racing Championships, which will be held in Perth, Australia.

“We return a lot of really good people,” Callahan said. “Our goal is to always get into the national championships, but we have as good a shot of any team right now of winning.”