Trinity won its first D3 title to cap not just an undefeated season, but also a quest that began a year ago when the crew took fourth at the 2024 IRA and resolved to return capable of winning it all.

"We felt like we really missed an opportunity," Trinity head coach Kevin McDermott said about the result last year. "We're not going to miss it this year," is what he told row2k on Friday.

After Saturday's final, McDermott reminded them how their journey to this championship began.

"After the race, I brought them together underneath the tent and said, this mission began a year ago with really heartbroken guys under this same tent at Mercer. And now here we are, beyond ecstatic in this victory, in this whole season."

Trinity did it in the last race of the wild and windy Saturday at the IRA that we covered in our full Saturday report: the D3 Varsity Grand Final came down the course literally pushed by a rain storm, as thunderstorms passed just far enough away to the north and south of the race course to get the last races done.

Pushing Trinity just as hard as the tailwind was a gritty Tufts crew whose silver medal--and their 2V's gold--earned Tufts the team points trophy.

Tufts 1V, who sealed the team points win with silver

Bates won the 1V bronze medal, their second in three years.

D3 Men's National Champion - Trinity

Trinity becomes the third team to win the relatively new D3 Championship--joining Williams and Wesleyan--but the program has a long history of success. They won the title here in a shell named for the late coach Larry Gluckman, who led the school to a string of NESCAC titles in 2005-2008 long before the IRA added this championship in 2022.

"They had a lot of confidence going on the water," said McDermott, who coached with Gluckman before taking over the program. "They've rowed in tailwinds, they've rowed in headwinds. The Knecht Cup victory down here, a month and a half ago, was a wicked cross tailwind. So they were confident.

"Tufts had an incredible run at us, but the race went according to plan."

Part of that plan involved nailing the start, according to coxswain Alenka Doyle.

"We've really prioritized a strong start for most of the year," she said, shortly before getting ceremonially tossed into the Cooper. "We've really been focusing on getting off the line really fast."

"Part of our issue last year was that we weren't putting ourselves in the race to begin with," she added, "so this year we've had a much better start. We've been able to put ourselves in contention, and then we've really been trusting our fitness and our base pace to get us the rest of the way."

The conditions kept the racing tight, but as they have all season, Trinity held on to the lead they grabbed from the jump.

"It was pretty close all way down the course," Doyle said. "Tufts also got off to a really good start and held with us.

"We talked before the race about focusing on our watts and power output and keeping the rate low and the same base pace we always do, trying not to let the tailwind change the way we race.

"We have three seniors in the boat, including one sixth year graduate student senior. For the underclassmen in the boat, they were a really big inspiration, so thinking about how these were the last minutes of racing for them, we focused on that in the final sprint, doing it for the seniors."

That sixth year student, Quin Woods in the six seat, talked about the moment in the race when Doyle called on him to go.

"Around 1200 or 1300 meters in, Tufts was down maybe half a length, our coxswain was sitting on their six seat," he said. "And Alenka calls out to me: 'Six seat, Quin, six years of rowing. Just drop bombs!' That's when I really felt the push and, right after that, we made a surge to take a few more seats."

Woods said it meant so much to win this race and complete both the mission he and his boat-mates set out on a year ago and such a successful spring.

Woods, in headband, celebrating the win

"We started off our season with scrimmage against Marist and every race since then was about trying to do our best to get up ahead early and establish our dominance early on."

"They executed all year," said McDermott, "and so on the day, I was really proud that they were able to do it one more time.

"I had said, I think you're going to go 5:40, and sure enough, they go 5:40.

"We have had 5:40 as our gold medal standard all year. We have been working off with that and need to reset it for next year, but 5:40 is the gold medal standard in flat conditions and on Friday, they went 5:45 without pushing at all, so I think we had a good target.

"They worked diligently towards that, and then today, put up one of the fastest times in Trinity history."

As it happens, the crew did go faster once this season--a 5:39 at NIRCs in another tailwind--but the 5:40.36 they threw down on Saturday is the IRA's new record in the D3 Varsity Eight.

D3 Men's Points Trophy - Tufts

Tufts won the team points trophy, with two medals on the day: a silver by the 1V that flipped their NIRC finish with Bates and an outright win by the 2V.

The Tufts 2V earned their win in the other new D3 record time on the day by getting through Williams after a tightly contested first 1500 meters. Colby's 2V won the bronze, collecting a medal in the team's first IRA appearance.

Tufts 2V with the Norman Graf Trophy

With the Tufts Women winning the NCAA team title earlier on Saturday over at Mercer, it was a good day for the entire Tufts boathouse.

"Something that we talk about frequently is how our biggest thing is being big and that the team provides the pressure within practice," said George Munger, the men's head coach and Director of Rowing. "The guys trading seats and rowing hard with one another every single day out on the Malden is what sets us up for a day like today.

"Race day results are never guaranteed, but what you can guarantee is delivering and receiving the gift of pressure from one another," he said.

"What made the difference today was being in that familiar place and accepting the fact that being put under pressure isn't inherently a bad thing and embracing that.

"The biggest thing for us was going out there and racing the way that we've been practicing," Munger added. "Our best races this year have been the ones that match our rehearsal and the guys just trusting in what we've been doing to prepare, the way that we've been rowing, the rhythm that we've been rowing, but also trusting the training and trusting the fitness and being willing to take a shot and see what could happen after the first thousand meters.

"I haven't seen that from either boat in the same way that I saw it from them today," he said.

"When they were rolling through the thousand meter mark, I didn't know if the wheels were going to come off or not. And you can't teach that. That's just bravery. It's a testament to the guys: their preparation and willingness to go."

Munger even pointed to the team's four, which finished 27th against the mostly D1 schools in the 39-boat-deep Varsity Four event, and how they were part of the effort, even though that race does not figure in the D3 points trophy itself.

The full Tufts IRA squad

"Honestly, the first indicator of this wasn't the 2V or the 1V, it was the guys in the four. Those guys went so deep, in their time trial, their semifinal, and in their final. When I saw that come down, I thought, okay, the training's right."

"They just have to go out and be brave. And they did, and that's a testament to the athletes."

Notes from the Course

'High Ten' For the Win - Trinity's McDermott said his guys were loose and having fun being fast this year, and one tradition they got going was the 'High Ten' where they do high-fives with both hands. Sure enough, after they got their medals? High Tens all around, and lots of smiles.

High Tens!

A Very D3 Awards Ceremony - When the threat of storms prompted the regatta to scratch the plan to present the D3 medals at the awards dock and decide instead to get the crews off the water and do the medals in the boatyard, the athletes pitched right in to help in what the coaches saw as the true D3 spirit. The Colby 2V moved the ergs out of the warm-up tent when they arrived to get their medals, and the Ithaca guys jumped right to it when asked to help put the ergs back. Add in all the parents who got a special dispensation from the Regatta officials to--temporarily--enter the athlete-only boatyard, and the medal winners had a special moment with all eight teams and their own families to celebrate their achievement...and the storms even held off until it was over.

Growth of the D3 Championship - we covered this in our IRA preview, but it is worth mentioning here as well: across the first four years of this championship, fully fifteen different D3 schools have earned bids in the eights--and there were five others participating this year in the Varsity Four--so the event is not only getting faster, but it is involving a diverse and rotating set of schools each year as D3 rowing itself keeps growing.