The Cal Poly Humboldt women’s rowing team will begin the final test in its pursuit of a national title on Friday, as the Lumberjacks are in New Jersey for the NCAA rowing championships. Humboldt is seeking its first national championship since 2014.
The elite programs from all divisions of the NCAA will descend on Camden County Boathouse for the championships this weekend. The events will start Friday morning with preliminary races to decide who will compete in the finals on Saturday. Humboldt will be competing against Western Washington and Embry-Riddle (Florida) in their two respective heats.
First, the teams will compete in the Varsity 8 event at 11:24 a.m. local time (8:24 PST) with the ‘Jacks in lane three. That will be followed by the Varsity 4 event at noon (9 a.m. PST) with Humboldt instead in lane four. The winners of these heats will advance to compete against the winners of the other heats in the final on Saturday.
There will be a second chance “repechage” heat for the remaining teams on Friday afternoon. Those events will be at 4:12 p.m. and 4:24 p.m. local time and the top two finishers will join the winners in the Grand Final.
Humboldt is definitely the favorite in their Varsity 8 heat given that the team is ranked second in the nation. The top team, Central Oklahoma, will be competing in the opposite heat meaning that the two teams could meet in the Grand Final.
Regardless of the final result, it’s been a tremendous season for the Lumberjacks both in the boats and in the classroom. The team had 12 rowers recognized as All-Academic selections with cumulative GPAs of 3.2 or higher. Emily Daniels, Chloe Pieper-Wasem, Sarah Lorenzini, Alyssa Paynton, Kealey Scott, Dana Foley, Amelia Marks, Molly Schoberle were all named as honorees. Additionally, Malia Seeley, Cassidy Hollenbeck, Marie-Claire Desplancke and Marjorie Johnson were named to the All-Academic team for the second or third time in their career (Seeley has been a selection for each of the past four years).
Seeley also became the first athlete to be All-Conference for three years in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference for Rowing. She was joined by Paynton and Molly Urtz. Foley was honored as the conference’s Rower of the Year and sophomore Sonja Scollon was named GNAC Coxswain of the Year. Head coach Matt Weise was named GNAC Coach of the Year.
Those honors all tell the story of the remarkable resurgence that the program underwent this year. Of course, for the athletes on the team the end to that story will only be complete with a National Championship this weekend.
Jake Matson can be reached at 707-441-0526.
