At the very least five crews have a legitimate shot at taking the NCAA V8 this coming Sunday, and the matchup at the top of the pack promises to be a great one. The last of the unbeatens in the group of the top 5 is Cal, who come in with victories over Washington and Stanford in their dual meets, and the win over those same crews at the Pac-10s Championships.
The ranks of the "beatens" are made up of a battle royale of crews that have all traded blows at the top of the pile all season, and any one of these will be a force; Princeton has regular season wins over Yale and Virginia in the bank, but the Tigers also lost a heartbreaker to Yale at Sprints by a couple of feet. Virginia has only lost to Princeton, and comes into the regatta with a full head of steam as the entire team won their events (V8, 2V8, V4) at the South-Central Sprints two weeks ago. Yale's win over Princeton, with both crews over two lengths of open water ahead of third-place Brown at Sprints, has to give the Eli a big boost of confidence going into NCAAs. And last but not least there is Stanford, defending champs in the V8, who were less than 1 second behind Cal at Pac-10s.
First blood will be drawn in the heats on Friday morning, with Cal and USC, Yale/Stanford and Virginia/Princeton headlining each of their respective heats. The top 3 crews from each heat advance, with the remaining 7 crews in each of the three V8 and JV8 heats advancing to a single, deadly, 7 boat, three-to-advance rep that same afternoon.
If the picture in the Varsity Eight is muddy, so is the team competition; Virginia, on the strength of their team speed at the South-Central event, have to be looked at as one of the favorites, but the battle here too is wide open, with other teams in the mix. Especially from the results at Pac-10s, where Cal ceded spots to Stanford and Washington in both the 2V8 and V4, and Sprints, where Yale won the team title despite Princeton winning the JV8 and Brown winning the V4 going away, it's clear that the team competition is going to come down to a fierce battle between 7-8 very good teams. Wisconsin and Michigan State showed great results at the South-Central Sprints as well, and will look to figure in the team title chase as well.
(Incidentally, the team title was very nearly the only "title" that was nominally going to be awarded at the NCAAs this year. After deciding to eliminate titles in the 3 individual boat classes earlier this year, the NCAA relented and will give out medals in each event after all. Where this may go in the future isn't quite determined yet. Not that this will affect the speed of the racing in any way, in any of the events...guaranteed.)
The DII and DIII racing sees a lot of familiar crews battling it out; Williams will look to fend off challenges from Bates, Trinity, Ithaca and Puget Sound in an attempt to capture another DIII title, wth Mercyhurst shooting for a straight V8 win, while the team from Western Washington is riding the current longest streak at the NCAAs, as WWU comes in attempting to win their 6th consecutive title this weekend.
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