June 4, 2008
NEWPORT, R.I. - The No. 5 Bulldog coed sailing team ended their highly successful season with an eighth-place finish at the ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy National Championships hosted by Brown, Salve Regina and New York Yacht Club in 420s in Newport, R.I. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The Eli sailors finished with 321 points over the 18 races in each division, the same as No. 6 College of Charleston, but lost seventh place on a tie-breaker.
The Eli performance was highlighted by the Bulldog's fifth-place finish in B Division with 149 points over 18 races. Sophomore captain Thomas Barrows skippered the B Division boat alongside crews senior Abigail Coplin and sophomore Marla Menninger, who sailed the 14th race of the regatta. Barrows, Coplin and Menninger finished the regatta with five finishes among the top three boats over the 18-race regatta. Barrows and Coplin won B Division at the 2007 national championships, the first win of a division at nationals by a Yale team since 1976. Barrows and Coplin are both returning All-Americans. No. 10 Roger Williams also had 149 points, but the Elis edged them out for the fifth place honors by finishing ahead of the Hawks in more races than the Hawks finished in front of the Bulldogs.
In A Division, senior Zachary Brown and junior Grace Becton finished in 11th place with 172 points. The duo finished in the top-five finishers in four of the 18 races over the three days of competition. The team's effort was highlighted by a win in the 15th race of the regatta.
No. 2 Georgetown won the event for the first time in school history with 238 points. No. 1 Boston College was second with 269 points, followed by No. 3 St. Mary's College of Maryland with 276 points, Roger Williams with 289 points, No. 12 Connecticut College with 307 points, No. 8 MIT with 312 points and College of Charleston with 321. The Bulldogs placed third in 2007, their best finish since 1981. The eighth-place finish is the second-best finish for the Bulldogs at the national championships since the beginning of the decade.
The 2008 ICSA/Gill Coed Dinghy National Championships featured the top competition in the country. For the first time in collegiate history, a national semi-final system was used to ensure that all the top teams in the country had an opportunity to qualify for the national championships. In previous years, each district in college sailing had a set number of berths for the national championship and these berths were determined at the district level. As a result, very strong districts frequently had nationally ranked teams that were unable to compete at the national championships. The 2008 championships, however, featured all of the 18 top-ranked teams in the nation.
Seniors Brown and Coplin both ended their collegiate sailing careers at the national championships. Both are eligible to be named All-American sailors again. Brown was named an All-American skipper during his freshman and junior years and was an Honorable Mention All-American skipper during his sophomore campaign. Coplin was named an All-American in the 2007 season. Barrows and Becton were also All-American sailors in 2007. If Brown is named an All-American in 2008, he will become the first male Eli sailor to be named an All-American or Honorable Mention All-American in each year of competition.
Report filed by Caleb Dorfman '09, Yale Sports Publicity
