CHARLESTON, S.C. - The No. 5-ranked College of Charleston coed sailing team claimed a 29-point victory over second-place Stanford to win the 2012 Admiral's Cup regatta hosted by the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy over the weekend in King's Point, N.Y.
The Cougars placed first with 315 points in the 19-team field ahead of No. 4-ranked Stanford in second with 344 points, No. 2 Georgetown in third with 350 points, No. 16 Old Dominion in fourth with 371 points and No. 12 Tufts to round out the top 5 with 438 points.
Junior All-American Mac Mace (Newport Beach, Calif.) skippered A-Division to a fourth-place finish with senior All-American crew Perry Emsiek (Corona del Mar, Calif.) in races 1-10 and 15-19 and senior crew Sam Stokes (Norfolk, Va.) in races 4-5 and 11-14.
In B-Division, junior skipper Ben Spector (Santa Clarita, Calif.) and senior All-American crew Alyssa Aitken (Sandwich, Mass.) placed third in a head-to-head tiebreaker with Georgetown, while senior All-American Zeke Horowitz (Sarasota, Fla.) won the laser C-Division with 22-point victory over Stanford's Mateo Vargas.
In other weekend competition, the No. 11-ranked CofC women's team placed third at the SAISA Women's Championships hosted by Clemson in Clemson, S.C. The Cougars lost a head-to-head tiebreaker with Eckerd College for the final spot for nationals as USF won the conference championship regatta with 20 points followed by second-place Eckerd with 24 points. However, the team is still hopeful for an at-large berth.
Senior skipper Corey Hall (St. Petersburg, Fla.) and junior crew Sarah Scudder (Mamaroneck, N.Y.) finished third in A-Division, while sophomore skipper Grace Lucas (Little Silver, N.J.) and junior crew Sarah Somes (Grosse Pointe Park, Mich.) won B-Division in a head-to-head tiebreaker over USF.
CofC closed out the regular season with both weekend regattas and will now prepare for the postseason with the ICSA National Semifinals on May 12-13 hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., as well as the ICSA Team Race National Championship on June 3-5 and the ICSA Coed National Championship on June 6-8 both in Lake Travis, Texas.
