Over the three-day Memorial Day holiday weekend, the top 14 schools in the nation - as determined by their performance in one of the seven Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association conferences to which they belong - were in America's Heartland racing for the 2010 ICSA/APS Team Race National Championship title on Lake Mendota.
And for one team, Jesse Kirkland’s St. Mary's College (St. Mary's, Md.), it was a reversal of fortune from 2009 when St. Mary’s lost this championship on a tie breaker, to come back and win this year's contest on a tie break with the same team -Boston College. Proving that they are a powerhouse in this format of sailing, the win marks the fifth time the Seahawks have clinched this unique championship which pits each college's three-boat team against another's in a round-robin series of matches.
The competition starts with the 14 teams divided into two groups; the first hurdle for the teams was finishing top four in their group. In Group 1, St. Mary's (6-0), Tufts (5-1), Yale (4-2) and College of Charleston (4-2) moved on to the Gold Round. Northwestern University (2-4), Texas A&M Galveston (1-5) and the University of Hawaii (0-6) were out of contention for the national title at the conclusion of that round.
On the water for St. Mary's were senior skipper Ted Hale with junior crew Francis Kupersmith, junior skipper Michael Menninger with senior crew Kelly Wilbur and senior skipper Kirkland with junior crew Madeline Jackson.
