Top-Ranked Hoyas Finish Third at Szambecki Team Race

The Georgetown coed sailing team was back in action this weekend, after being voted the top-ranked team in the country for the second straight weekend, receiving 19 of 21 first-place votes.

Although there were three events, the most important event was the Aaron Szambecki Team Race at Old Dominion University. The Hoyas managed a 12-5 record against a field that featured four of the top five teams in the country. Georgetown’s record earned it third place behind Saint Mary’s College and Boston College, who split the top spot with identical 13-4 records.

After sub-par 4-3 and 5-2 records in the first two legs of the regatta, the Hoyas compiled a 3-0 record in the final four and heartened Head Coach Michael Callahan in the process.

“Our performance was a little bit of a letdown from last weekend,” he said. “But I was encouraged by our performance in the final four.”

Georgetown’s victories in the finals over Saint Mary’s and Boston College were particularly notable, since those teams had already accounted for four of Georgetown’s five losses. Callahan said he was glad to see the improvements his team made from race to race. “Sweeping the final four was a little bit of a confidence re-boost for us, but all in all we would have liked to have won,” Callahan said. “But being only one race behind in a very close event at this point in the season is fine with us.”

The fleet-racing format of the regatta also did no favors to this young team, since being consistently good at fleet racing requires much more practice than the style of team-racing that the Hoyas have come close to mastering.

On the topic of his team’s relative inexperience, Callahan maintained a patient outlook.

“It just takes a while for the team to gel and we just made some mistakes,” he said. “And natural ability couldn’t pull us out of it. We just need to coach them up a little bit more and I think we’ll be fine.”

The Hoyas also sent their second team up to the United States Merchant Marine Academy, where sophomores Scott Furnary and Ashley Phillips performed particularly well against many other first teams in a fourth-place finish. The team came in third in the Robert Paul Arrigan Memorial Regatta, which is an annual event hosted by the Georgetown sailing program in memory of a former Georgetown sailor who passed away after his freshman year in 1984.

The Hoyas have no interscholastic competitions next weekend and instead will race against their parents and alumni on the Potomac as a fundraiser and preparation for the national qualifying races that are held over Easter weekend.