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The Spring Sports Roundup
July/August 2008
by Albert Chen ’00
Albert Chen ’00 is a staff writer at Sports Illustrated.
Last year, when Yale won its first NCAA championship
in women’s crew, the Bulldog varsity eight took an early lead in the season’s
grand final and, never looking back, glided to a smooth finish in the race.
This year was a different story. On June 1 at Gold River, California, in its
last race of the season, the Yale crew was in third place with 1,500 meters to
go. But Bulldogs coach Will Porter, watching his team from the water’s banks,
was not worried. “I thought, ‘These kids have been here before, and they know
how to get it done,’” he says. Indeed, in an exhilarating finish, the Bulldogs
overtook Brown and Stanford to win their second straight championship. The
margin of victory was less than one second. “Throughout the season, there was a
quiet confidence with this team,” says Porter. “The experience of last year
certainly was a big factor.”
Suddenly, women’s crew at Yale is a national power.
The Bulldogs have now won two straight varsity-eight NCAA championships—they
are only the second school to have done so since women’s crew became an NCAA
sport in 1997—and have advanced to the NCAA team championships seven years
straight.
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“They kept their heads down, stayed relaxed, and didn’t press.” |
To win this year, the Elis had to get by Brown, a
team that had beaten them twice. On May 3, in the last regular meet of the
season, the Bruins had scuttled Yale’s hopes for an undefeated campaign; two
weeks later, at the Eastern Sprints, Brown handed the crew a second loss.
Porter says that defeat was a blessing in disguise. “We changed our tactics,”
he says. “And we also found another gear.” The Bulldogs’ adjustments paid off.
In this year’s final race, after they had passed Brown with 500 meters to go,
coxswain Mia Kanak ’10 believed Yale was the leader of the pack—not realizing
that Stanford was, in fact, ahead. “A rookie mistake, but I think that actually
helped us,” says Porter, whose crew passed Stanford with 20 strokes left. “They
just kept their heads down, stayed relaxed, and didn’t press. And I think that
was the key to the race.”
The other dramatic championship finish this spring
took place on the tennis courts. The women’s team entered the final weekend of
the season needing a win over Dartmouth to complete an undefeated season and
advance to the NCAAs for the first time in Yale history. Near the end of the
tournament, the two teams were tied and the Bulldogs’ winning record hung in
the balance with freshman Lindsay Clark, who needed a win in her singles match.
Clark fought off two match points before taking the third-set tiebreaker 8–6.
Her win secured the Bulldogs’ first outright Ivy League title in 27 years.
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Yale’s sailing teams enjoyed a successful spring. |
“It was incredibly intense watching the match,” says
the Elis’ top-ranked singles player, Janet Kim ’09. “It was appropriate that we
had to fight for it until the last ball. All year the freshmen stepped up for
us, so it was a great way to win.” While Clark clinched the title for the
Bulldogs, it was Kim who had led the way for Yale throughout the season. After
going 6–1 in league play against other top-ranked singles, and finishing 22–11
for the year, Kim was named Ivy League Player of the Year. She was the first
Eli in women’s tennis to do so. “I was on the computer at the library, just casually
checking the Yale athletics website, when I found out that I’d won the award,”
says Kim. “It’s a great honor. But I have to say, winning the Ivy League team
championship was bigger. Maybe we can be the team that starts a tradition of
many more championships at Yale.”
After women’s crew and tennis, Yale’s sailing teams
enjoyed the most successful spring. Both the women’s and coed sailing clubs
were ranked as high as first in the nation during the season. In the ICSA
national championships in May, the women’s team finished in third place. In its
national championship competition in early June, the coed team finished eighth.
Six members from the two teams were named All-Americans, including Zachary
Brown ’08, who earned All-American honors for the fourth straight year.
On land, one of the most exemplary individual
performances by a Yale athlete this spring came from Jeffrey Lachman ’09. The
discus thrower qualified for the NCAA championships with a fifth place in the
NCAA East Regional Championships in May, where he achieved a personal best of
53.15 meters—the longest toss by a Yalie since 1970. It was a rebound for
Lachman, who had been Ivy League champion last year but didn’t place in this
year’s Ivy championships. “After [the Ivies] I just relaxed, and got in the
right mindset for regionals, and I think that was the difference for me,” says
Lachman. He was one of four Yalies who competed at the nationals; the others
are pole vaulter Eric De Palo ’10 and runners Lindsay Donaldson ’08 and Kate
Grace ’11. Says Lachman, “It’s a thrill to be able to represent Yale on such a
stage.” |
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