The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) shared the waters of Mercer Lake this morning to crown two repeat champions and NCAA qualifiers in Northeastern and Jacksonville, respectively.
Colonial Athlete League
The Northeastern women very nearly dominated the CAA racing, with an eight-second win in the V8, a 13.5 second win in the 2V8, a 13-second win in the V4, and a nine-second win in the 3V8. The 6am start was very nearly business as usual for the Northeastern women, and it showed.
"We row in the morning, so they got up at the regular time and came down," Northeastern coach Joe Wilhelm said. "They accelerated the warmup a little, but it didn't really change much."
Northeastern won all four events last year as well (with the Novice 8 having been run instead of a 3V8), but by far less expansive margins. Wilhelm said that the difference came from the athletes having committed to improvement for the long haul nearly a year ago after winning the D final at the 2015 NCAA Championships.
"We had a really good group of athletes who trained really hard from the end of the NCAAs last year until now," he noted.
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
With today's title, Jacksonville three-peated as the MAAC champion with a crucial win the in Varsity 8 that put them three points ahead of Marist when the points were added up. Up to the V8, Marist had topped Jacksonville in both the 2V8 and V4 by one place, so it came down to the final race, and first-year Jacksonville head coach Mike Lane was feeling the pressure.
"I was feeling it not only for the program trying to win it for the third time, but also a bit for myself coming back and being around a lot of my peers and friends in the area," Lane said. "We wanted to come up and perform, so it was a fun day for us and a great day for the program."
With the big tailwind churning up conditions in the second half of the racecourse, Jacksonville frontloaded their race plan to take advantage of the best water, holding off Canisius in second place and Marist in third to take the win.
Along with the Pac-12, the MAAC is the only conference that runs their men's championship at the same time as their women's NCAA qualifier. Marist prevailed today on the men's side with wins in the Varsity 8 and Second Varsity 8 helping also to nab the points trophy.
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