The Radcliffe women’s crew had two primary objectives in mind when it travelled to the EAWRC (Eastern Association of Women’s Rowing Colleges) Sprints this weekend on Camden New Jersey’s Cooper River—first, shake up the standings and, second, set themselves up for a bid to NCAAs later this month.

Radcliffe accomplished both.

The team is sitting pretty for an automatic bid to NCAAs, coming away with a fifth place finish overall at EAWRCs.

Now Radcliffe will wait until May 21 for the seedings to be announced for the championship, to be held on Indianapolis’ Eagle Creek Reservoir. Twelve teams nationwide will receive automatic bids, with at least one team representing each of five national regions. Aside from those berths—which will bring two eight-person boats and one four—four at-large bids will be handed to eight-person boats.

The Chick Willing overall points trophy, though—taken this weekend by Princeton—was not what the Black and White were after at EAWRC Sprints. A good setup for NCAAs and a strong race at all levels was more along the lines of what they wanted. Radcliffe Coach Liz O’Leary got that with medaling finishes from the varsity eight and the first novice eight, and with strong results from the second varsity eight.

Radcliffe Heavyweights

The Radcliffe varsity eight came into the weekend ranked No. 8 in the national standings and fourth in the EAWRC coaches’ polls behind Brown, Princeton, and Yale.

With their third place finish on the Cooper, the Black and White varsity head into three weeks of training for NCAAs with Princeton down, Brown and Yale to go.

In the morning heat, the varsity boat came in second—four ticks behind the Yale boat—and was told to relax going into the afternoon final.

“Our goal was to do what it took to get into the final,” senior stroke Margaret Winterkorn-Meikle said. “Coach told us to really focus on relaxing and enjoying the race for the final.”

Relaxing was no problem for the varsity, as the morning heats took care of any nervous energy and the women were able to work on rowing well into the Cooper’s cross-headwind.

They were also able to cut Yale’s margin by two seconds, surpassing a higher-ranked Princeton and remaining within striking distance of Brown.

Yale and Brown jumped out to an early lead off the start, but Radcliffe made a move at the 1,000-meter mark and pulled even with Yale. The Elis, though, had more juice left and turned it on to take the lead for good with 500 meters to go.

“Yale was our target and it helped that we had planned to gauge our race off them,” said Winterkorn-Meikle of the afternoon final, pleased with the fight Radcliffe gave.

The Brown varsity has now won Easterns for five straight years, but the Black and White is still in the hunt for NCAAs, moving up in the rankings by virtue of its bronze at EAWRCs.