NCAA Rowing Championships, 2013: Recap and Review

The 2013 NCAA Rowing Championships were a mighty struggle for all those involved, not least because of inclement weather in Indianapolis that saw crews foundering and schedules changing at times across the three-day event. Beforehand, we took a look at our preseason picks, factored in the regular season, and gave our opinions about just who'd come out on top in Windy Indy. Now, it's time to take a look back & see how our predictions performed.

Division I
In the varsity eight, we picked USC, Princeton, and Virginia to medal in Indianapolis. While our pick for silver, Princeton, did in fact take second, UVa fell to fourth overall, with the women of Troy rounding out the final in sixth (a bit of a surprise considering they had been undefeated throughout the regular season, and were Pac-12 champions). Instead, California took gold ahead of the Tigers, with the Buckeyes of Ohio State finishing out the medals in third place.

Our picks for the second varsity faired a little better, with our favorite to win, Ohio State, doing just that. We also predicted that California would give the Buckeyes a run for their money—California finished second, just two seconds off the leaders.

In the varsity four, we were very surprised by a number of the results, including seeing the previously undefeated Cal crew—our pick to win it all—wind up in the B Final. Another crew we listed as notable, Brown, finished fifth in the event, behind another outstanding OSU crew, USC, Washington, and Virginia, respectively.

Division I team points & final results versus our preseason top 10

Our picks on February 13, 2013:
1. California
2. Washington
3. Virginia
4. Princeton
5. Stanford
6. USC
7. Ohio State
8. Harvard-Radcliffe
9. UCLA
10. Yale

Results from Indianapolis, May 31-Jun 2, 2013:
1. Ohio State
2. California
3. Princeton
4. USC
5. Virginia
6. Washington
7. Brown 
8. Yale
9. UCLA
10. Stanford
(Also of note: our preseason No. 8 Harvard-Radcliffe finished 11th) 

Division II
Our top pick, Barry, fell to second place, as Nova Southeastern managed to reverse the results from the Dad Vail Regatta and land themselves on the top of the podium in Indianapolis. UC San Diego edged Western Washington for the bronze.

Division III
Again, our picks here fared a little better, as we selected Williams to win their eighth-straight NCAA DIII Rowing title. The Ephs accomplished just that, and our pick for second place, Bates, did in fact make a strong case for themselves, finishing just over two seconds behind the champions—next year, things might just get interesting between those two programs.

-RR

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