BETHEL, Ohio -- Cal Poly Humboldt shined on Friday morning at the NCAA Division II Rowing Championships at Harsha Lake in Bethel, Ohio. Both the Varsity 8+ (V8+) and Varsity 4+ (V4+) boats won their heats and claimed automatic berths for the Grand Final on Saturday. Humboldt was the only team out of the six Division II teams to send both boats to the Grand Final and avoid the afternoon repachage racing.
"The team did a great job of staying composed and racing well today," said head coach Matt Weise. "It is a totally different story when you have to race three times instead of two times in a 24 hour period. Physically and emotionally this really helps set ourselves up for another great performance tomorrow."
The reigning national champions finished first in the second heat of the varsity 8+, picking up the second automatic spot in the grand finals. Led by coxswain Sonja Scollon, the Lumberjacks clocked a time of 7:15.857 to narrowly edge second-place Embry-Riddle in 7:16.365. Cal Poly Humboldt's boat was comprised of rowers Leah Dunn, Dana Foley, Lucianna Voss, Emily Marsolais, Elizabeth Walters, Kealey Scott, Gwen Sutton and Kylie Mosley. The 'Jacks were down for the entirity of the race but took over in the final 250 meters for a thrilling come from behind victory.
Coxswain Sonja Scollon spoke with media after the race and stated, "The rowers were really responsive in the final 1500 meters, they were very attentive and had high energy and emotion to help pull us through with an automatic qualifier to the Grand Final. Avoiding the repachage is huge step for us, it's tough mentally to go twice in one day in order to earn a spot in the final, so it's a huge step that will hopefully set us up for success tomorrow."
The Lumberjacks took care of business in the varsity 4+ preliminary round as well, winning the second heat to lock up a spot in the grand finals on Saturday. Humboldt completed a comfortable victory in 8:37.845, with a healthy margin of 7.382 seconds separating it from second-place Western Washington. The Lumberjacks' varsity 4+ boat featured coxswain
Emily Daniels and rowers
Gabriella Griffin,
Marie-Claire Desplancke,
Emry Yount and
Sydney Schwankl.
Associate Head Coach Ashley Donnell stated post race, "It was an outstanding performance, they followed their race plan and looked very comfortable being uncomfortable. We fell behind early on to Western Washington as they are notoriously fast starters, we wanted to hang with them and just control our length and rhythm to take that lead back, and that's exactly what they did."
Coxswain Emily Daniels spoke with media after the race as well and said, "We had a really strong middle chunk of the race and I was very confident that we would just chip away at Western after every stroke their fast start. I was happy we stuck to the plan and stayed long throughout the race. Having this win under our belt will allow us to relax and talk about the fine tune changes we need to make for tomorrow's Grand Final."
Cal Poly Humboldt will race tomorrow morning and will make a push for their fourth national title. All racing information can be found below.
Updated Schedule:
Varsity 4+ race - 7:12 AM (10:12 AM ET)
Varsity 8+ race - 7:44 AM (10:44 AM ET)
Link to watch: https://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule/2024/06/01
Link to live results/schedule:
https://results.regattatiming.com/backoffice/webpages/schedule/schedule.jsp?raceId=597
Scoring
Teams will be scored based on placing in the Varsity 4+ and Varsity 8+ race as follows. Ties for team awards will be broken by the place finish in the eights. The top scoring team will be awarded the 2024 NCAA Division II national championship trophy:
| Place |
Varsity 8+ |
Varsity 4+ |
| 1st |
18 |
12 |
| 2nd |
15 |
10 |
| 3rd |
12 |
8 |
| 4th |
9 |
6 |
| 5th |
6 |
4 |
| 6th |
3 |
2 |
To stay updated on the latest news and updates about the championship, make sure to follow our social media channels:
- Instagram: @humboldt.athletics
- Facebook: Cal Poly Humboldt Lumberjacks
- Twitter/X: @HumboldtJacks
For more information about the event, please visit the official championship website:
https://www.ncaa.com/sports/rowing/d2
