ICSA News

Without just a few conference events on the schedule, college sailing is focused this week on interconference events and ICSA Showcase co-ed regattas. On the Thames River at Connecticut College, women's teams from across the US competed for the famed Stu Nelson Trophy in what could be considered a preview of the upcoming Women's Showcase events in MAISA. In nearly perfect conditions, the Bulls of the University of South Florida started strong in A-Division led by skipper Marina Barzaghi, and crews Carolina Rovira and Samantha Kappaz, this week's SAISA women's Sailors of the Week. Finishing day one on the heels of the Stanford Cardinal, the Bulls returned for Sunday driving for a podium finish. Barzaghi, Rovira, and Kappaz delivered six top-3 finishes during the regatta including 2 bullets and brought a third-place A-Division rank and an overall regatta fourth for the event back to St. Petersburg against a deep field of competitors.

*** Burnes and Wang are the NEISA Co-ed Sailors of the Week***

***Burn and Williams are the NEISA Women Sailors of the Week***

The Coed sailors qualify for the Coed Showcase Finals- The Fiske Harriman Sleigh at Connecticut College; Stanford and Harvard look strong before the Women’s Showcase Finals.

The United States Naval Academy won their side of the Coed Showcase Qualifiers, at home. The regatta was a full 36 race event and the drama extended throughout the event as Georgetown, the regatta leader from race 1B to race 17A were overtaken by Navy during the final set of the regatta. 

Navy’s success came as a team effort as sophomore phenoms, Joseph Hermus and Sally Johnson won A-Division narrowly over Sean Segerblom ‘20 and Annabelle Ayer ‘22 of Georgetown. Meanwhile, Parker Loftus ‘20 and Kimmie Leonard ‘22 of Navy finished the regatta with a 1,2,1,1,1 to spark Navy’s run to pass the Hoyas. Navy has now won the last four doublehanded, fleet race regattas sailed at home. 

As the fall regular conference season draws to a close, teams in SAISA North and SAISA South hit the water at the final division points regattas this past Saturday with championship qualifications in the balance. In the South Eckerd College secured the division title despite a late surge and points event win from USF. In the North Division, NC State won in Wilmington, earned the division title for the first time in program history, and are recognized as this week's SAISA Conference Sailors of the Week for Week 4.

*** Fox and Nelson are the NEISA Co-ed Sailors of the Week***

***Kaneti and Jakobson are the NEISA Women Sailors of the Week***

*** Klingler and Webb are the NEISA Women’s Sailors of the Week ***

*** Agerup, Reynolds, Zonnenberg are the NEISA Coed Sailors of the Week ***

The in-conference half of the season has concluded as conferences square off at two major inter-conference regattas in New England along with the women showcase qualifiers.

Harvard University won the Danmark Trophy, hosted by the United States Coast Guard Academy. The Crimson finished 46 points ahead of second placed St. Mary’s, led by a dominant B-Division performance by Henry Burnes ‘21 and Lulianna Tarista ‘20. The tandem defeated Luke Arnone ‘23 and Meredith Ryan ‘22 of Yale by 36 points. Burnes and Tarista scored only one race outside the top-8 and only had 3 races outside the top-5; including five first place finishes, three in the last four races of the event. 

This past weekend's SAISA Match Racing Conference Championships qualifier was "one of the largest and deepest fleets compiled to qualify for match race nationals out of SAISA," according to host and PRO Kevin Jewett. In a fiercely competitive event, Eckerd College and Jacksonville University teams survived the first round robin with only one loss. As the day progressed, this week's SAISA Sailors of the Week, the Eckerd College Tritons match race squad secured key wins down the stretch and bested charges from both College of Charleston and Jacksonville University to win their first match race qualifier since 2015. The Tritons came into the event well-prepared having trained for weeks in advance of the match competition and making it a team priority. 

For the second day in a row, the sailors representing the ICSA defeated the visiting British sailors, this time 3-1, in the Laser 3v3 team race for the 2019 Performance Sailcraft Trophy.

The BUSA sailors showed up early to practice in Navy's rustic fleet of lasers and get used to ICSA's version of rule 42.  The format for the Laser team race was a first to three point series, with teams switching boats after the first two races. Team ICSA was represented by Ford McCann (Georgetown University), Connor Bayless (US Naval Academy) and Gavin McJones (US Naval Academy).  Since all three sailors from ICSA will be competing at the MAISA Men's Singlehanded Championship for the Van Duyne Trophy this weekend, spirits and confidence levels were high for this round of competition against the visiting competitors from BUSA.

Although it was week two of the conference season with points events in both divisions underway, the spotlight for this week's SAISA Sailors of the Week is on Miami where the U hosted both Men's and Women's SAISA Singlehanded Conference Championships, qualifier for the 2019 ICSA LaserPerformance Singlehanded National Championships held later this year. The week leading up to the event saw forecasts all over the place, but when the men took to the water on Saturday it was pretty glassy and racing was abandoned until the afternoon. When the wind did show up, it really showed up and the College of Charleston's Steven Leuck was there for it. Leuck last competed in SAISA Singlehanded in the fall of 2016 finishing 5th in that contest behind a slate of fellow Cougars that year. In his return Leuck took the lead from the first race, put distance between himself and the field early, and held on until the end for the regatta win despite a late charge from host Miami's Marshall McCann. Conditions were definitely a factor in the outcome of this regatta and Leuck adapted well to the building breeze to win a tough event in a very talented field. Congratulations to Leuck on earning this week's SAISA co-ed Sailor of the Week. He will be joined by Miami's McCann, and Charleston's Benn Smith to represent SAISA at singlehanded nationals.