College roundup: Bates’ second varsity eight wins ninth straight NCAA rowing title

The Bates College women’s second varsity eight rowing crew celebrates after winning the 2V grand final at the NCAA Division III championships on Saturday in Pennsauken, New Jersey. Photo via Bates College Athletics

The Bates women’s rowing team’s second varsity eight crew captured its ninth straight gold medal at the NCAA Division III Rowing Championships on Saturday in Pennsauken, New Jersey.

The Bobcats advanced to the grand final after winning its repechage Friday. According to a Bates College press release, it is believed to be the first time in the current format of the NCAA Division III Championships that a crew has gone from the repechage to winning the grand final.

“Nine straight gold medals, I’m not sure that is real,” head coach Peter Steenstra said in the release. “It shows not just the depth of the program but how competitive the bottom is as they push up, and then how unified the group is that comes here.”

The second varsity eight — with senior coxswain Isabella Sobolewski, junior stroke Genesis Bussey, and Hannah de Fontaine, Hope Stamp, Ollie Young, Olivia Szachta, Lauren Cockrill, Quinn Gleason and Lydia Barker at the bow — finished the 2,000-meter race in 7:10.463. The Bobcats beat runner-up Wellesley by 0.782 seconds after trailing the Blue by about two seconds at the 1,000-meter midpoint of the course.

“We raced our race today, and it’s an incredible feeling to cross the line first for the ninth year in a row as a team,” Young said in the release. “It’s a young crew and we really needed that repechage to refocus, because there were a lot of nerves at first. But we got our confidence back and it showed. It’s been an immense privilege to be a Bates rower for the last four years, and I couldn’t be more thankful.”

Bates’ first varsity eight crew finished sixth in its grand final Saturday. The two Bates crews combined for 41 points as a team — 25 for the first varsity eight, the maximum 16 for the second varsity eight as grand final winners — putting the Bobcats even with NESCAC rival Tufts for fourth overall. The Jumbos earned the tiebreaker thanks to their higher finish in the 1V race.

It’s the 15th time in the 16 years Bates has qualified for the NCAA championships that the Bobcats have finished in the top four in the country as a team.

WOMEN’S TRACK
RICHARDSON PLACES 12TH AT NCAAS: Bates College senior and Auburn native Jillian Richardson capped off her collegiate career with a 12th-place finish in the 5,000-meter run at the NCAA Division III track championships Saturday in Rochester, New York.

Richardson completed the 12 1/2 laps in 17:12.22. She was in 21st position out of 22 competitors after the first half-lap, and climbed to as high as seventh midway through the race before rallying from 15th with three laps to go.

She earned All-American Second Team honors with her finish. The top eight finishers receive first-team honors, and second-team honors go to finishers in ninth-through-16th place.

Loras College’s Kassie Parker won in a time of 16:18.30, setting a new facility record in the process. She led after every full lap of the race.

Earlier in the day Saturday, Richardson’s teammate Chrissy Aman competed in the women’s 1,500-meter run final but did not finish the race.

BASEBALL
UMAINE WINS AMERICA EAST TITLE: Jake Rainess led off the first inning with the first of Maine’s four home runs, and Gianni Gambardella allowed just three hits over eight scoreless innings as the Black Bears earned their first America East baseball championship since 2011 by defeating Binghamton 6-1 on Saturday in Binghamton, New York.

Jeremiah Jenkins, Jake Marquez and Quinn McDaniel also homered for the top-seeded Black Bears (32-19), who earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The 64-team field will be announced at noon Monday on ESPN2.

After taking the lead in the bottom of the first, Maine made it 2-0 in the second on a double by Nick White and a single by Ryan Turenne.

Jenkins hit his 20th home run of the season in the third, Marquez belted a two-run homer in the fourth, and McDaniel went deep in the seventh.

Gambardella struck out two and walked two. Justin Baeyens allowed a leadoff homer in the ninth before closing out the victory.