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     • NCAA TICKET & VENUE INFORMATION

2019 NCAA DIVISION II WOMEN'S ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Eagle Creek / Indianapolis Rowing Center / Indianapolis, Indiana
• Webcast: https://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule
• Live Results: http://regattatiming.com
 
Friday, May 31 (winners to grand final, rest to reps)
8:24 am PDT — Varsity Eights heat I:  Lane 2–Jefferson, 3–Central Oklahoma, 4–Seattle Pacific
8:36 am PDT — Varsity Eights heat II:  Lane 2–Western Washington, 3–Florida Tech, 4–UC San Diego
8:48 am PDT — Varsity Fours heat I:  Lane 2–Jefferson, 3–Central Oklahoma, 4–Western Washington
9:00 am PDT — Varsity Fours heat II:  Lane 2–Seattle Pacific, 3–Florida Tech, 4–UC San Diego
 
Saturday, June 1 (top two to grand final, rest to petite final)
7:36 am PDT — Division II Varsity Eights repechage
7:48 am PDT — Division II Varsity Fours repechage
 
Sunday, June 2
6:24 am / 6:36 am PDT — Division II Varsity Fours petite / grand finals
6:48 am / 7:00 am PDT — Division II Varsity Eights petite / grand finals
 
For the second time in school history, Seattle Pacific will compete for the team title when the three-day NCAA Women's Rowing Championships are contested, Friday through Sunday, May 31-June 2 on Eagle Creek in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Falcons will participate at the NCAA regatta for the first time since 2011 and the fifth time overall. Three previous appearances (2007, 2009, 2011) were made by at-large varsity eight entries that did not factor into the team standings. The Falcons' previous foray into the national team competition resulted in a second-place result at the 2010 NCAA Championships. The finest finish by a Falcons varsity eight was a third-place performance in 2009.
 
Championship Format
The NCAA Division II championship field consists of six teams, each comprised of one eight- and one four-oared crew. The team champion is determined by combining the results from those two events, with greater importance being given to results from the eight-oared entrants (see chart at lower right). Competition begins Friday, May 31 with heat races. Winners of each heat advance to Sunday's (June 2) grand finals while the remaining four crews compete in repechage races Saturday, June 1. The top-two finishers in each repechage will complete the grand finals fields and the other two race in the petite finals. This is the first year all six qualifiers are included in the team competition, which previously featured just four complete teams and two at-large varsity eight crews.
 

Championship Field
Two boats will represent fifth-ranked Seattle Pacific at the NCAA Championships, the varsity eight and varsity four. The Falcons will be joined by No. 1-seeded Central Oklahoma, the defending national champion and West Region automatic qualifier, along with No. 2 Florida Tech, the top seed from the South. Also competing will be No. 7 Jefferson (formerly Philadelphia University), which received a berth by virtue of being the East's top seed. Like SPU, No. 3 UC San Diego and No. 4 Western Washington were at-large qualifiers. The NCAA Division II championships are held in conjunction with the Division I and III competitions with separate champions declared in each division.
 
Did You Know?
SPU's varsity eight compiled a 2-5 record in 2019 races versus NCAA qualifiers (2-1 vs WWU, 0-2 vs UCO, 0-2 vs. UCSD) and the four was 0-5 (0-1 vs. WWU, 0-2 vs UCO, 0-2 vs UCSD) ... The various Falcons crews have combined for 16 first-place finishes in races this season, including heats ... Both SPU coxswains, Jacqueline Kemp and Roxy Ruther, were home-schooled during high school ... Ten of the 16 SPU student-athletes traveling to Indianapolis hail from the state of Washington ... Before coming to SPU, Andrew Derrick coached Central Oklahoma to five consecutive NCAA appearances from 2012-16 ... SPU teams have won nine national team championships, five in men's soccer, three in gymnastics and, most recently, a 2008 women's soccer title.

 

Edgar Excels
Seattle Pacific junior Gillian Edgar was invited to the USRowing Under-23 Women's National Team Selection Camp that is scheduled for June in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is the only NCAA Division II rower among the 29 student-athletes selected for the pool that will determine seats for this summer's U-23 World Championships squad. A product of King's High School in Shoreline, Washington, Edgar didn't start rowing until the fall of 2017, her sophomore year of college. She competed as a middle-distance runner on the Falcons track & field team as a freshman before switching to rowing. Edgar quickly earned a spot in SPU's top crew and has been a fixture in that varsity eight ever since. Despite her novice status and rowing less than a year, Edgar garnered second-team All-America honors in 2018 from the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association. Hosted by the University of Virginia and its coach Kevin Sauer, the selection camp serves to choose members for the U-23 women's eight, four, quadruple sculls and four with coxswain that will compete at the 2019 World U-23 Championships scheduled for July 24-28 in Sarasota, Florida. The camp also will select a pair to race at USRowing's U-23 World Championship Trials in early July. Last year, the U.S. women's four with coxswain and women's pair both won gold medals.

 

Coach Derrick
Former University of Washington standout Andrew Derrick is in his third year as the women's rowing coach at Seattle Pacific. He assumed the helm of the program in October 2016, returning to Seattle where he was a four-year UW letterman and helped the freshman crew to the 2001 national championship. Derrick rowed in the bow seat for the Huskies' national runner-up varsity eight boats in 2003 and 2004. Derrick's SPU crews improved dramatically from his first year to the next, highlighted by a win over Western Washington in the Falcon Regatta on April 14, 2018. A 2004 graduate with a bachelor's in history, Derrick remained at UW to earn his master's in intercollegiate athletic leadership in 2008. He was named to the All-Pac-10 Team as well as earning all-conference academic honors three years in a row. Derrick, 35, came to SPU after a five-year stint as the head coach at Central Oklahoma. The former UCO assistant was promoted to head coach in 2011 and directed the team to the NCAA Championship Regatta in each of his five seasons. The Bronchos were national team runners-up in 2016 after placing third in 2015. The UCO varsity eight and varsity four crews each won silver medals at the 2016 NCAA championships.
 
Quoting Coach Andrew Derrick
"I am overcome with joy that these women are going to get to experience the NCAA Championships. I am so proud of them. They've worked incredibly hard and have been very singularly focused on that goal this year. They're just a great group of student-athletes and I'm so happy that they get to compete all the way to the last day. The goal is to not make it different. They've done a great job all year showing up on race day and performing to the best of their abilities and close to meeting their potential. The goal is to use the reality for a little bit extra excitement, but to not get into the realm of nerves and all of those counter-productive emotions. We're going to try to just be business as usual, knowing that there's a lot riding on it, but we don't need to put any more pressure on ourselves. Lot of familiar crews to us. We have not faced Florida Tech or Jefferson this year, but they are both very good teams. The other three teams out of the West are very good teams. If we raced this championship 10 times we would probably come up with 10 different results. There's a lot of parity between these teams and it's going to be very close racing to see who shows up just a little bit better on that day. I'm confident that they're going to show up and represent themselves quite well."