GOLD RIVER, Calif. – The Seattle Pacific University women's rowing team competed in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships on Saturday morning, where the Falcons rowed to a fourth-place finish in the conference.
FROM THE COACH
"I was really proud of the team," head coach
Kenzie Waltar said. "The varsity eight had a really fierce race. We got up quickly on Central Oklahoma and battled with Humboldt the whole way. We got ahead of them, they got ahead of us, and we held contact with Western for a really long time. That was really cool to see and a big step forward from WIRAs. I was really proud of how the eight competed out there."
"The fours also laid down some solid races. The headwind was definitely strong and definitely impacted the times across the board."
"While the point total puts us fourth out of four teams, it was only by one point between us and Central Oklahoma, and we've seen almost the exact same thing happen before. That's a bummer, but the GNAC is the fastest Division II conference in the country, and we have a lot of hope going into next week."
"We're looking forward to Tuesday when we get to watch the selection show, and we're just going to continue to work. Overall, it was a great performance. The final result is a little disappointing, but we performed well."
HOW IT HAPPENED
- The Open 4+ race opened the GNAC Championships, with the Falcons finishing fourth in 8:53.061.
- The Falcons took fourth in the Varsity 4+, clocking in at 8:49.053.
- The Falcons were bow-to-bow with Cal Poly Humboldt and Western Washington at the 500-meter mark of the Varsity 8+ race.
- The Vikings took a slight lead, while the Falcons and Lumberjacks were still side-by-side at the 1,000-meter mark.
- The Lumberjacks pulled away to take second, while the Falcons took third with a time of 7:23.856.
- SPU finished seven seconds ahead of Central Oklahoma in the V8+ race.
THE FINAL STANDINGS
- Western Washington swept the V8+ and V4+ to win the championship with 30 points.
- It marked the second time since the event was founded in 2021 that a team swept both the varsity 8+ and varsity 4+ titles, earning the maximum of 30 overall team points.
- Cal Poly Humboldt took second place with 23 points.
- Central Oklahoma took second in the V4+ and fourth in the V8+ to earn 19 points, beating out the Falcons by one point for third place.
TOUGH COMPETITION
- All of the GNAC's programs are among the top in NCAA Division II, with WWU ranked first, Cal Poly Humboldt second, Seattle Pacific third, and Central Oklahoma fifth in the latest CRCA Pocock national coaches poll released on May 12.
LINEUPS
Varsity 8+ - c:
Aleksia Haugen, 8:
Solanes Capps-Mace, 7:
Amelia Pape, 6:
Emma Jones, 5:
Miriam Dykstra, 4:
Bella Lisenby, 3:
Emmerson Spencer, 2:
Grace Combs, 1:
Gem Gatmaytan
Varsity 4+ - c:
Lexi Roybal, 4:
Kaitlin Hollebeek, 3:
Elizabeth Chapman, 2:
Racquel Wesley, 1: Brittan Delberg
Open 4+ - c:
Sasha Kolobovnikov, 4:
Rachael Termure, 3:
Mia Vittori, 2:
Erica Fisher, 1:
Faith Akutagawa
UP NEXT
The 2026 NCAA Division II Rowing Selection Show will air Tuesday, May 19th at 3:00 p.m. PST on NCAA.com. A link to the show will be on the front page of NCAA.com.
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