ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Navy's intercollegiate sailing team capped off its 2019 fall regular season with a pair of top-10 finishes, which included a second-place finish at the War Memorial Regatta and a sixth-place finish at the MAISA Women's Fall Championship.
The War Memorial Regatta, which is the MAISA Coed Fall Championship and rotates around the major hosting sites in the MAISA Conference, was held at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y. The top 18 teams in MAISA qualified with fall season results and the War Memorial Regatta is used to determine scheduling rankings for the next year, along with a berth in the spring team racing league.
Eighteen races were per division were scheduled for the event, however, light winds on the first day of racing, followed by very heavy winds on Sunday made for numerous delays and only 13 races were finished throughout the weekend.
The Midshipmen were strong in all the different conditions that were featured throughout the weekend and they were in a tight four-way battle for the top spot in the standings with Georgetown, Hobart and St. Mary's. The leader continued to change throughout the final stretch of races at the racing deadline loomed, with slight mistakes coming at a great cost. St. Mary's pulled ahead at the very end to win by eight points over Navy with Georgetown and Hobart right behind to round out the top four.
With a second-place finish this weekend and the Midshipmen's win at the America Trophy last spring puts Navy as the top seed heading into the coed scheduling order for the 2020 season and places the Midshipmen in the field for the upcoming America Trophy, along with the 2020 fall coed showcase series.
JC Hermus,
Sally Johnson,
Sean Linden and
Jonah Hatt finished third in the A division with
Parker Loftus,
Kimmie Leonard, Hatt and
Connor Bayless placing second in the B division.
At this year's MAISA Women's Fall Championship at St. Mary's, 12 teams from the conference were in the field. Similar to the conditions at Kings Point, winds were light on Saturday and heavy on Sunday. The winds were unstable throughout the event in a horseshoe bend, which made for some challenging racing. Despite less teams in the fleet than normal, the talent level was high and racing was close all weekend long.
To start the event, the Midshipmen struggled early but they came on strong on Sunday to place sixth overall in the 12-team field. The Midshipmen were tied for fifth but dropped a tiebreaker to George Washington.
Olivia de Olazarra and
Madeline Pruzan finished eighth in the A division while
Brittney Slook and
Fiona Lobon were fourth in the B division.
With the finish, Navy will be the sixth seed in the women's scheduling ranking and will qualify for the spring conference championship and women's showcase series next fall.
Navy will now send
Gavin McJones and
Jessica McJones to the ICSA Men's and Women's Singlehanded Championships in Santa Barbara, Calif., from November 8-10.
