The Wesleyan women’s rowing team pulled off a come-from-behind second-place finish at the NCAA Rowing Championships’ varsity eight grand final on Saturday, May 27, 2023. It was a thrilling end to a difficult spring season for the team.

While the second varsity eight excelled throughout the regular season, head coach Pat Tynan said the varsity eight struggled to compete at the top of its game. 

“One of the big frustrations was [that] we couldn’t really separate our varsity eight and our second eight,” Tynan said. “They were like the same speed for a lot of the spring.”

The second eight won third at the New England Rowing Championships (NERC), and then finished first at the National Invitational Rowing Championships (NIRC) a week later. Anne Horton ’24, one of the rowers in the varsity boat that finished second at the NCAAs, was quick to emphasize that the second varsity’s regular season performance helped enable the varsity’s postseason success.

“I think the [second varsity boat] was one of the reasons that we were able to really push into the NCAAs,” Horton said. “Working as a team, we were able to get to that point where we’re okay and then just went after it when we got into the postseason.”

Things didn’t start to turn around for the first varsity boat until the Connecticut River flooded in the spring, forcing Tynan and his rowers to move their practices to Lake Beseck, a lake in Middlefield about a mile long and a quarter mile across. The smaller body of water encouraged the Cardinals to shake up the rhythms of their practices. 

At the same time, Tynan was experimenting with mixing up the rowers in each boat. He praised his team’s ability to adapt to the rapidly changing lineups.

“What stuck out to me is with that uncertainty, the team just rolled with it,” Tynan said. “They were really professional, and I really appreciated their trust in me, in that process.”

Ultimately, thanks to the location change and the personnel swaps, the first varsity boat rallied in time to score an NCAA championship bid. Anna Merrifield ’24, another varsity eight rower, said the Cardinals were keenly aware that they were headed into the NCAAs as an underdog.

“We had an opportunity to prove everyone wrong,” Merrifield said. “And we knew that we could do it.”

On the morning of Friday, May 26, the Cardinals’ first varsity eight boat won their initial heat at the NCAAs. The victory sent them directly to the grand final, and kept them out of a second-chance heat—called a repechage, or “reps”—in the afternoon. It was the first time in a while that the varsity boat had avoided the reps, and Horton said the win was encouraging.

“[We] came out of the morning racing with the fastest time, which was really exciting,” Horton said. “And we were like, oh my God. We could actually do this.” 

The next day, Saturday, was the day of the grand final. The varsity eight lined up at the starting line along with their opponents in the most nerve-wracking moment of the competition. 

“You have to sit still while this woman on a big stand yells at you in a microphone and tells you to move so that you’re exactly lined up,” Merrifield said “And you’re just holding still and your heart is racing. There’s so much adrenaline. And there was an ice cream truck, I remember, playing music in the background, and it was so annoying. And [then] they started the race.”

The Cardinals surged ahead, but soon heard the calls to stop. One of the other boats had false-started.

Tynan, watching the race on a jumbo screen in the athletes-only area, was worried the false start would fluster his rowers. In fact, it did the opposite.

“I think our team in particular is really good at staying focused,” Merrifield said. “I think that [the false start] gave us an advantage because we were able to re-concentrate really well and trust that everyone in our boat was one hundred percent ready to do it again.”

The race began in earnest, and by the thousand-meter mark—the halfway point—Tynan’s team had fallen far behind. It was only in the last five hundred meters that they began to advance, passing multiple boats in the final quarter of the race—an unusual accomplishment in a rowing regatta. Both Tynan and Horton credited coxswain Ava Olson ’25 with contributing to the energy in that final stretch.

Although the Cardinals challenged first-place Wellesley in the last few hundred meters, they ultimately finished second. It was the highest NCAA championship finish in program history, an accomplishment the team did not take lightly.

“We had that in the back of our minds throughout the whole season because we knew that our team was gonna be really strong this year,” Merrifield said. “And so we were really hoping to break the record.”

Horton also commented on the emotional nature of the achievement.

“There was laughing,” Horton said. “There were tears. There were many, many tears that weekend.”

Now, as the Cardinals move into fall competition, they’re looking to channel the energy of their historic spring season. 

“I think it would be really awesome to medal in a race like the [Head of the Charles], which is just a gigantic race,” Horton said. “I think that’s the way I want to go out as a senior, and also as one of our captains.”

Tynan voiced a similar desire to win races in the fall. But he said he’s also conscious of how the team is laying the groundwork for their future. 

“Of course we want to go fast in the fall,” Tynan said. “But it’s about, what kind of foundation are we laying here? What kind of behaviors are we instilling?”

The fall crew season kicks off on Sunday, Oct. 8 with the Riverfront Regatta in Hartford, Connecticut, where the team’s championship quality talent and determination will be on full display. 

Audrey Nelson can be reached at aanelson@wesleyan.edu. 
Erin Byerly can be reached at ebyerly@wesleyan.edu.