Video: Watch as Bates women’s rowing celebrates second NCAA championship
The Bates women’s rowing team defeated Williams by one point to win the 2017 NCAA Championship in dramatic fashion the morning of May 27 on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, N.J.
Competing first at the regatta, the Bobcats’ second varsity eight won its race (their fourth consecutive gold medal), earning Bates 12 points. Williams’ boat finished third, and that would be critical.
Bates’ first varsity eight then took to the water. Though they would finish second to Williams (earning 27 points), Bates’ 39 points overall were enough for the championship, just one point better than Williams’ 38, the Ephs falling short because of their third place finish earlier in the 2V8 race.
Watch this clip of the team being introduced as national champions, plus comments from senior Molly Pritz:
Bates’ 2V8 rowers watched nervously from the shore as the first varsity eight battled its way to second. Captain Abigail Bierman ’17, second varsity coxswain, describes the scene.
“We’re watching, we’re watching, and Wellesley puts up this fight in the last 500 meters that almost gets them,” she recalls. But Bates “put up an even bigger fight. My bow seat Alex Salazar turns around and is like ‘I can’t watch any more!'”
The race ends, and “we whip our heads around to the coaching staff, and ask, ‘Did we?’ and they nodded — We did!”
The weekly Bates Bobcast features the national champs:
This marks the 11th consecutive year the Bates women have rowed in the NCAA Championships. They have finished first twice (2015 and 2017), second six times, third twice and fifth once.
