Michigan
NCAA Heats
U-M Treks to Florida for NCAA Championships
5/23/2018 10:00:00 AM | Rowing
» Michigan qualified for the NCAA Championships for the 11th year in a row and the 19th in program history.
» The Wolverines hold a No. 6 national ranking and have all three boats seeded top-seven in their respective events this weekend.
» Last spring, the program made history by putting all three boats into the Grand Final for the first time since the 2001 season.
THIS WEEK
Fri-Sun., May 25-27 – NCAA Championships (Sarasota, Fla.), 9 a.m. (Fri.) | 7:38 a.m. (Sat.) | 2 p.m. (Sat.)
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The No. 6-ranked University of Michigan rowing team will conclude its 2018 season at the NCAA Championships this weekend Friday through Sunday (May 25-27) at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, Florida.
The Wolverines are set for three days of action at the site that hosted the World Rowing Championships last summer, beginning Friday at 9 a.m.
Racing will include the first varsity eight, second varsity eight and first varsity four races. The three boats from each school will compete for individual national titles while earning points toward the overall team championship.
Michigan will have all three of its competing boats ranked as top-seven seeds in their respective races:
1V8 -- No. 6 seed
2V8 -- No. 5 seed
1V4 -- No. 7 seed
U-M earned one of 11 available at-large bids for the championships and will be competing at the national regatta for the 11th consecutive year. Overall, this is the program's 19th appearance in 22 varsity seasons under head coach Mark Rothstein.
Races are set to begin at 9 a.m. on Friday, with the last race of the day scheduled for 11:12 before repechages in the afternoon.
Due to weather concerns, Saturday races were moved up and U-M's day will begin with the 1V8 race at 7:38 a.m. If weather holds, Sunday's finals will be moved up and will also be raced on Saturday, beginning at 2 p.m. There will not be any races held Sunday.
Michigan's lineups for this weekend are as follows:
1V8: Alexis Jones (coxswain), Kalia Krichko, Meghan Gutknecht, Kendall Brewer, Victoria Glunt, Shayla Lamb, Kate Burns, Caroline Hendershot, Flick Cain
2V8: Charlotte Powers (coxswain), Annika Hoffmann, Emma Luniewicz, Perry Bower, Tayla-May Bentley, Megan Hinkle, Kathryn Grotto Madison Byrd, Grace Gagliardi
1V4: Kathleen Peng, Emily Krebs, Rachel Fanning, Rae Oleshansky, Erika Yasuda (coxswain)
A full schedule of Michigan's schedule for the weekend:
Friday, May 25
8:58 a.m. -- I Eights Heat 3 (Lane 4)
9:54 a.m. -- Fours Heat 2 (Lane 4)
10:18 a.m. -- II Eights Heat 4 (Lane 4)
2:46Â - 2:54 p.m. -- I Eights Repechages
3:02 - 3:10 p.m. -- II Eights RepechagesÂ
3:18 - 3:26Â p.m. -- Fours Repechages
Saturday, May 26
7:38Â a.m. -- I Eights A/B Semifinals (Lane 5)
7:46 a.m. -- II Eights A/B Semifinals (Lane 3)
8:02 a.m. -- Fours A/B Semifinals (Lane 5)
2 p.m. -- I Eights Petite Final (Places 7-12)
2:24 p.m. -- II Eights Grand Final (Places 1-6)
2:40 p.m. -- Fours Grand Final (Places 1-6)
3:28 p.m. -- Final Race of the Day (weather permitting), immediately followed by Division I Awards Ceremony
THINGS TO KNOW
On the Water
• After opening the season ranked No. 5 in the CRCA/USRowing Coaches' Poll, U-M has maintained a top-10 ranking all season long. In the latest edition, the eighth released this season, U-M is ranked No. 6, second among Big Ten teams.
• For the second year in a row, the Big Ten conference is sending five programs to the NCAA Regatta: No. 3 Ohio State, No. 14 Indiana, No. 10 Iowa and No. 11 Wisconsin.
• Overall, U-M returns 13 athletes from last year's NCAA Championship unit to this year's roster: Tayla-May Bentley, Kendall Brewer, Shayla Lamb and Kalia Krichko rowed in last year's first varsity eight; Flick Cain, Rebecca Joyce, Caroline Hendershot, Rachel Fanning, Kathryn Grotto and Alexis Jones in the second varsity eight; Victoria Glunt, Abby Vare and Erika Yasuda in last year's first varsity four.
• Eleven of those 13 are part of the 2018 championship roster: Bentley, Brewer, Lamb, Krichko, Cain, Hendershot, Fanning, Grotto, Jones, Glunt and Yasuda.
• For the Wolverines, the NCAA regatta comes two weekends after the program's 12th consecutive top-three finish at the Big Ten Championships. U-M earned a runner-up team finish with 163 points on the strength of five second-place finishes.
• Overall, six of seven U-M boats matched or outperformed their seeds at the conference championship event.
• U-M boasts the Co-Big Ten Athlete of the Year in senior co-captain starboard Kendall Brewer, who became the first Wolverine to earn a share of the award since Felice Mueller in 2012.
• In addition, U-M's second-place finish earned it four All-Big Ten honorees: first teamers Brewer and junior Meghan Gutknecht and second-team honorees Flick Cain and Kalia Krichko.
• This season, U-M's 1V8 has wins over more than a dozen different programs on the spring season, finishing ahead of nationally-ranked programs from No. 7 Virginia, No. 8 Yale, No. 10 Iowa, No. 11 Wisconsin, No. 12 Brown and No. 14 Indiana, in addition to a number of unranked teams.
• The 1V8's only losses have come to No. 1 Washington, No. 4 Texas, No. 9 Princeton and No. 10 Iowa.
• Head coach Mark Rothstein is in his 22nd season at the helm of the program that he helped build from a club team to a varsity powerhouse. He has coached nine teams to top-five NCAA Championship finishes, including two second-place finishes (2001, 2012) and last year's third-place showing. Rothstein was recognized as the Big Ten Coach of the Year on four occasions and was named CRCA National Coach of the Year in 2001.
Off the Water
• Michigan Athletics honored more than 500 student-athletes at the Academic Celebration last month (April 9), including an astonishing 64 rowers. Among those who received additional recognition was Rebecca Joyce, named the recipient of the Let's Go Do Award for Civic Engagement.
• Through the generosity of alumni Tracy Wolfson and David Reichel, junior Caroline Hendershot was chosen to spend a week preparing for and executing an NFL broadcast with the Emmy-nominated Wolfson on CBS. Read more about Hendershot's once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
• Senior coxswain Alexis Jones was announced last month as one of four recipients of the Bonderman Fellowship, a prestigious honor awarded to four graduating U-M LS&A seniors which affords them the opportunity to travel the world for eight months on a $20,000 stipend. [ Release ]
• Junior Rachel Fanning was the subject of a recent edition in the popular Scholar Stories series on MGoBlue.com. The full article details her hopes of heading to Hollywood to help build a more diverse movie industry upon graduation.
Players Mentioned
