With an off week between Co-Ed Championships and SAISA Women's Champs teams hit the road to regattas in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, as well as a SAISA favorite in North Carolina. In the nascent and competitive Women's Team Race National Invitational in Providence, RI, USF carried the SAISA banner, while the Eckerd College women grabbed a podium spot at the President's Trophy at Boston University. At Navy Spring, SAISA women stepped up to the co-ed plate. SOTW regulars Alie Toppa and Annabelle Carrington of the College of Charleston staged a strong comeback falling just points shy of the B-Divison win, but the tally for SAISA Women Sailors of the Week went in favor of an inspired performance by Jacksonville University's Charlotte Rose and GiGi Arias at the SAISA/MAISA SailPack Oriental Intercollegiate.
After securing the regatta lead with two bullets to start the regatta, Rose and Arias faced a brief setback as the weather moved in and the breeze dropped off on Saturday afternoon leaving room for hosts NC State to grab the lead. The back and forth continued on Sunday as the Fins finished the second rotation with two bullets and fought off another late charge by the Wolfpack and a surging CNU squad. In one race, Rose and Arias were over early at the start, and over the course of the next three and a half legs, moved from 18th in the fleet to within reach of the top group. A gamble on course left on the final downwind paid off and the Fins finished the race in 3rd, eventually securing the Jacksonville A-Division win.
Also at this past weekend's SailPack Oriental Intercollegiate, we find this week's SAISA Co-Ed Sailors of the Week, the NC State B-Division squad who combined late heroics to grab and protect the Division lead, as well as making enough gains in a fiercely contested B-Division to propel their team to an overall regatta victory. Wolfpack sailors Hogan O'Donnell and Olivia Gregg began the regatta near the top of the fleet and kept NC State in the hunt while their A-Division boat battled it out, neck in neck, with Jacksonville. Their early success delivered momentum for the squad to hit the water Sunday morning with gusto and veteran skipper Travis Tucker and first-year crew Sam Marcom made the best of a building southerly. Despite a dramatic capsize near the finish of one of the last races of the regatta, the NC State B-Division sailors did what they needed to do to hold off the charging JU Fins and win the division, leading their team to the overall regatta win.
With the spring season drawing to a close, all eyes turn to Eckerd College for this upcoming weekend's SAISA Women's Championships, and beyond to ICSA Nationals in Newport, RI.
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