Given another chance for national acclaim, the Seattle Pacific University women’s rowing team is ready to hit the water.
For the fourth consecutive year, SPU has punched its ticket to the NCAA Division II Championships, taking place on Friday, May 30, and Saturday, May 31, in West Windsor, New Jersey.
Seattle Pacific qualified for the Varsity 8+ and Varsity 4+ boat races. The V8+ boat will be in lane four, racing against the University of Central Oklahoma and Western Washington University. Seattle Pacific’s V4+ boat will be in lane two, racing against California Polytechnic University, Humboldt and Western Washington.
The first heat and the repechage races will take place on Friday, with the winner of heat one automatically advancing to the grand final and the four remaining boats competing in the repechage. The top two teams in the repechage advance to the grand final, and the rest compete in the petite final, both of which take place on Saturday.
Head coach Caitlin McClain and assistant coach MacKenzie Waltar share confidence in their team’s ability to row their best races as they aim for the grand final.
“Our region is a very tough region, so we’re looking forward to recording hopefully our best performances of the year,” McClain said. “We have potentially three races coming up, and that’s the type of races that are the most fun, because you have a chance to tweak some things, build some confidence and change your strategy. We’re excited to see if we can kick out a little more speed or get our bow out in front of a team that maybe beat us earlier this year.”
In preparation for the national race, McClain had the V8+ do technical training in four-person boats.
“The four tends to be a more technical boat, requires good unity and togetherness, so the thing that I want the eight to focus on is what they’ve learned or what they were reminded of as we did some training in fours, and make sure that they’re as clean and connected as they can be,” McClain said. “If they’re able to focus on that and go as hard as they can within those parameters of moving together, then that will help them have their best races.”
Training in fours has helped V8+ junior coxswain Aleksia Haugen, who coxed the V4+ boat that won the 2024 national championship, adjust to the larger boat.
“It’s been refreshing for everyone to be back in fours after being in an eight for so long, because it’s very different with the technical aspects, so bringing back what we’ve learned from fours to eights has been really helpful,” Haugen said. “We’ve been working, and we are fast, and I think we forget that with how tough the competition is this year. Everyone’s trying to go for it, but I know we have a chance.”
Waltar wants the V4+ boat to focus on rowing with extra strength in its upcoming race.
“Something that I want to remind them of is that at GNACs, we got fourth place by point six seconds,” Waltar said. “I think that’s a motivator to go extra hard, because it’s a photo finish, so it’s anybody’s game.”
Junior Lexi Royal, coxswain for the V4+, said bringing the boat up to speed is the crux of its race plan.
“It feels like every time we’re out on the water, we get faster, so that’s really, really encouraging,” Roybal said. “A big thing has been making tweaks to our race plan, or what rate we’re comfortable at, figuring out what plan will work best for us. Our race plan is a lot more technical. It’s how many strokes you take right off the start line, how fast you want to go in which parts of the race, and then how long we want to take on our sprint toward the last half of the race.”
Acknowledging the success of last year’s V4+ boat, Roybal is hopeful for a repeat but is more concerned with leading the boat one race at a time.
“There’s a lot of pressure on the V4+ to perform the way we did last year, [but] there’s an entirely new lineup for us this year,” Roybal said. “While we do have our eyes set on that goal, it’s important to look at this year’s V4+ as a new boat and be realistic about things. I think our goals right now are to take that point four seconds from Western and squeeze them out of the finals.”
With a grand opportunity in front of them, Seattle Pacific is determined to show up and show out on the national stage.
“Nationals can be a lot of pressure, but we have the opportunity and the privilege of performing at the highest level,” Roybal said. “Four seasons going to nationals is a lot to celebrate, so we’re keeping cool, calm and collected and trying to celebrate what we’ve done so far this season. I’m excited to see what times we get to put up. We have a lot of competition, but I still think it’s anyone’s game.”
