Virginia Women's Rowing Team Begins NCAA Competition on Thursday

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May 22, 2001

CHARLOTTESVILLE – The University of Virginia women’s rowing team begins competition on Thursday (May 24) in the fifth NCAA Women’s Rowing Championships at Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Ga. The competition is scheduled to continue through Saturday (May 26).

Virginia is one of 10 teams selected to compete in the championships. The other team selections include Boston University, Brown, California-Berkeley, Harvard, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio State, Princeton and Washington.

As a team selection, Virginia has three crews at the NCAA Championships. The 10 schools competing for the team title will have one crew in each of the contested races – the first varsity eight, the second varsity eight and the varsity four.

Nine additional schools received at-large invitations to participate in the first varsity eight competition. Those schools include Ithaca, Michigan State, Rutgers, Southern California, Syracuse, Wesleyan (Conn.), Western Washington, Williams and Yale. The nine schools receiving at-large invitations in the varsity eight can win that competition, but without an entry in all three races are ineligible for the team title.

Virginia finished third in all three grand final races to finish third in the team competition at last year’s NCAA Women’s Rowing Championships in Camden, N.J. Brown won the team championship for the second consecutive year by winning both the first varsity eight and the second varsity eight competitions, while Washington finished second as a team and won the varsity four competition.

Virginia has finished in the top four in the team competition at each of the four NCAA Women’s Rowing Championships. The Cavaliers finished fourth in 1997, third in 1998, second in 1999 and third last year.

The women’s rowing team is in its sixth season as an intercollegiate sport at UVa.