Minutewomen Wrap Up First Day of NCAA Championship With Heats and Semifinals

GAINESVILLE, Ga. – The Massachusetts rowing team opened the NCAA Championship on Friday with heats in the morning then semifinals in the afternoon. The semifinals were moved up a day to also take place on Friday due to potential weather concerns on Saturday.

The Minutewomen will now compete in the D finals of the Varsity 8, Second Varsity 8 and Varsity 4 on Sunday morning.

"Any time you're at a regatta like this, the national championship, there's a learning curve," said head coach Eric Carcich. "We're really young and we had to figure some things out in the morning heat. In a three-race progression, it gives you a little bit of time to figure it out. And we got our legs underneath us, saw a lot of opportunities from our first race this morning and we came out and had a good step two. We're excited to put our best stuff together for Sunday morning."

The Varsity 8 began the day by coming in sixth in its heat with a time of 6:33.265. Massachusetts then came in sixth in their CD semifinal, finishing in 6:35.776.

"We're a young group and we know we were going to have some big names in the heat," said Antonia Gigacher, six seat of the Varsity 8. "We tried to stay really internal and race for ourselves. We got a little external in the heat, but we made a really good switch in the afternoon races and focused on ourselves, which made a big change for us."

The Second Varsity 8 placed sixth in its morning heat with a time of 6:46.807 and sixth in its semifinal with a time of 6:51.035, which was ahead of Jacksonville's time of 6:52.323 from the second CD semifinal heat.

The Varsity 4 ended the morning by coming in fifth with a time of 7:21.416, nearly nine seconds ahead of Jacksonville in sixth (7:30.026). In the afternoon, the crew came in fifth in its CD semifinal with a time of 7:38.295.

The Minutewomen will return to the water one final time on Sunday morning for their respective D finals. The Varsity 4 will race at 8:12, Second Varsity 8 at 8:36 and Varsity 8 at 9 a.m.

"Spring 2026 season has one more go, one more time down the course and this group is committed to put their best effort together," said Carcich. "Get our minds right tomorrow, get some rest and put our minds together so that each boat from the varsity four to the JV eight and varsity eight has their best stuff."

UMass Boat Lineups
Varsity 8
Amanda Scally (c)
Olivia Ollerenshaw
Sarah Happs
Antonia Gigacher
Sonya Mazrimas
Erin Smith
Mia Booth
Grace Turnbull
Sotiria Michailidi

Second Varsity 8
AJ Prahl (c)
Maeva GK
Hannah Glover
Louise Roper
Maddie Cockburn
Ruby Hodges
Mia Lowes
Bella Ross
Felicity Pye

Varsity 4
Meghan O'Hern (c)
Ana Kolesnikova
Gretta Anderson
Teagan Blue
Lauren Carpenter

Scoreboard

Minutewomen Wrap Up First Day of NCAA Championship With Heats and Semifinals

Players Mentioned

Gretta Anderson

Teagan Blue

Mia Booth

Lauren Carpenter

Maddie Cockburn

Antonia Gigacher

Hannah Glover

Sarah Happs

Ruby Hodges

Mia Lowes

Sonya Mazrimas

Sotiria Michailidi

Meghan O'Hern

Olivia Ollerenshaw

AJ Prahl

Felicity Pye

Louise Roper

Bella Ross

Amanda Scally

Erin Smith

Grace Turnbull

Scoreboard

University of Massachusets Athletics