Wellesley Crew Wins the 2022 NCAA DIII Rowing National Championship

SARASOTA, Fla. – Wellesley College crew captured the 2022 NCAA Division III National Championship on Saturday afternoon at Nathan Benderson Park. The national title is the program's second and the first since 2016.

The Blue finished in second in both the Varsity 8+ (V8+) and Second Varsity 8+ (2V8+) Grand Finals to place first in the team standings with 51 points. Bates finished as the team runner-up with 50 points. WPI was third overall with 48 points on the strength of their first overall finish in the Varsity 8+ race.

Wellesley is now one of only four women's rowing programs to capture multiple NCAA Division III titles since 2002. Wellesley placed third at the 2019 NCAA DIII Championships after finishing as the runner-up in 2018. The Blue did not compete in 2020 or 2021 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

Wellesley was just over a second behind WPI and Ithaca in the first 500 meters of the V8+ Grand Final. The Engineers extended its lead at the halfway point while the Blue remained in third place. The next 500 meters saw a change as Blue Crew pushed past Ithaca to move into the second place spot. Wellesley was able to keep the pace and finished as the runner-up (6:58.72) behind first place WPI (6:55.27). Bates (7:01.08) had a strong second half and took third and Ithaca (7:03.55) finished in fourth.

In the Second Varsity 8+, Bates took a slight lead over the Blue in the first 500 meters and was able to extend the lead at the 1,000 meter mark by a half length. The Bobcats maintained the lead through the 1500m and eventually came away with the close victory with a time of 7:04.16. The Blue finished just under a second behind at 7:05.07. Ithaca was third with a time of 7:09.224.

For more on the NCAA Championships, log-on to NCAA.com.

Wellesley NCAA Lineups:

V8+: C - Isabella Santos (West Hartford, Conn.); 8 - Anya Hanitchak (Andover, Mass.) ; 7 - Katie Ball (Hanover, N.H.); 6 - Kaity Severin (Newton, Mass.); 5 - Olivia Gorman (Bristol, Conn.); 4 - Anneka Hallstrom (Ann Arbor, Mich.); 3 - Catie Moeser (Madison, Wis.); 2 - Kaylee Liu (Acton, Mass.); 1- Emma Anghel (Windham, Maine)

2V8+: C - Colette Kennedy (Mill Valley, Calif.); 8 - Adeline Van Buskirk (Hingham, Mass.); 7 - Zipporah Cohen (St. Paul, Minn.); 6 - Anastasia Brooks (Dallas, Texas); 5 - Gaya Krishna (Houston, Texas) ; 4 - Cora Barrett (Tewksbury, Mass.); 3 - Cricket Liebermann (East Montpelier, Vt.); 2 - Eleanor Antezana (Seattle, Wash.); 1 - Emma Dean (San Francisco, Calif.)

Alternates: Rachel Shrives (Harvard, Mass.), Amelia Lee (Hong Kong, China ), Katherine Welsh (Cohasset, Mass.)