For the fifth time in history, six of the Ancient Eight schools obtained tournament bids.
By Justin Lee
2 hours ago
Women’s rowing team practicing on the morning of March 25.
Credit: Chenyao Liu
For the fourth year in a row, the Quakers continue their dominance on the water by clinching a tournament spot in the NCAA Division I Women’s Rowing Championships.
The Quakers enter as the No. 15 seed, securing an at-large bid among the 22 total teams. Alongside the Red and Blue, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton all received at-large bids, while Yale earned the Ivy League’s automatic bid with a first-place finish in the tournament. The last time six schools in the Ancient Eight received bids was in 2019.
“Even without taking another stroke, they’ve shown that they’re one of the top [teams] in the top 25% nationally, and I’m positive they’re going to exceed that with their racing,” coach Bill Manning said of the team.
With their backs against the wall at Sunday’s Ivy Tournament, the Quakers finished sixth in the Ancient Eight. Though Penn entered as the fifth seed, the team placed fifth in the First Varsity Eight and finished sixth in both the Varsity Fours and the remaining Varsity Eights. Despite finishing under their seed, their performance in the tournament was still a strong showing by the team’s seniors, who remained the backbone of the program.
“The success of Penn women’s rowing has really been largely instigated and propelled by our current seniors,” Manning said. “I’ve seen some, some really good, good racing out of them, and that’s extremely satisfying.”
The NCAA championships fall outside of the Quakers regular season. Heading into the tournament, the Quakers hope to incrementally improve their consistency.
“We’re going to be racing over the course of three days. We’ll race each day and improve our consistency– we’ve been somewhat erratic, and [unable] to string together really good performances on consecutive days,” Manning said.
The Quakers will compete from May 30 to June 1 at Mercer Lake, N.J. In the tournament’s first varsity eight heat, the Quakers will be in the same heat as Oregon State, University of Indiana, University of Texas and Yale.
“Racing programs like them, it’s a real challenge, and it’s one that the team embraces and is up for,” Manning said. “We’re going into NCAA not focused on Yale or on Stanford or whomever, but very much focused on ourselves and trying to do our best.”
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