Fresh off of a second-place finish in the Graham Hall Interconference Match a week ago, the Georgetown sailing team battled for another pair of top three finishes in two separate team races over the weekend.
The crew of sophomores Haley Shea and Rebecca Fung, along with junior Meaghan MacRae, headed to the East River in New York for the Admiral Moore Team Race event, hosted by the SUNY Maritime Cadets. Junior Roger Dorr, sophomore Campbell D’Eliscu and senior AJ Reiter served as skippers for the team’s top boat in the competition.
Georgetown raced well in the light conditions, finishing just under the U.S. Naval Academy and Stanford University for third place. The top three finishers, including Georgetown, went 10-4 on the day, leaving head-on-head tiebreakers to decide the rankings in the end. Georgetown Head Coach Michael Callahan had high praise for the team’s competition and was excited to get the top-team experience on the Big East championship course.
“Those were all good teams and the races were hard-fought. Our conference championships are going to be in the same venue as the Admiral Moore so that’s why we sent to the top group there to learn about the currents and get used to the boats,” Callahan wrote in an email to The Hoya.
In its second match race, Georgetown sent its second set of sailors to the Aaron Szambecki Team Race in Virginia. Taking advantage of the warm temperatures and consistent winds Saturday, the Hoyas had an early advantage, and the crew of senior Albert Kraus, sophomores Claire Mohun and Yusuf Mallick and freshman Macey McCann lead the field going into Sunday’s competition.
Sunday, however, presented a stark contrast in conditions and the Hoyas gradually lost a grip of their once-commanding lead, struggling to adjust to the rapidly changing conditions. A Round Three loss at the hands of Tufts put Georgetown in a must win final race with regatta host Old Dominion. In the final race of the regatta, ODU pulled ahead of Georgetown to take the lead in points and win the regatta in dramatic fashion.
“[The] bad loss to Tufts set up a winner-take-all race versus Old Dominion and we didn’t start well and trailed the whole race. It was the top team from ODU and they have improved all semester, but I would have liked to have seen us sail better,” Callahan said.
So far this spring, the Hoyas combined record in top-level competitions is 68-26, compared to the 86-13 record last year at this point in the season. Despite the drop in winning percentage, Callahan remains confident in his team and alludes to the inexperience of the team as reason for the decline in record.
“We lost two-thirds of our team [last year] to graduation,” Callahan said. “We are still learning and hopefully we will be good enough to make Nationals.”
The sailing team now turns its focus to the MAISA Team Race Championships in Throggs Neck, N.Y., on April 8. The race will be Georgetown’s first national qualifier competition for team racing.
