April 24, 2008
NORFOLK, Va. -- For the first time in the history of college sailing, the ICSA will have a tournament to determine the national champion beginning with the ICSA Semi-Finals this weekend. Old Dominion qualified for the Semi's with a 7th Place effort in the MAISA Qualifier, the America Trophy, earlier this month. Eighteen teams in each of the two semi-final brackets will race for an opportunity to advance to the ICSA National Championship held on June 2-4 this year.
This weekend's West Regional at USC, in which ODU will be sailing, will pit 18 of the 36 best sailing teams in the country against eachother. The top nine finishers in both regionals will advance to the championship.
The three number one seeds in the West Regional are #20 South Florida, host and 18th ranked USC and #4 Georgetown. The regional semi-final includes six other ranked teams to watch out for: #2 Yale, #5 College of Charleston, #6 Brown, #9 Roger Williams, #13 MIT and #16 SUNY Maritime.
In A division, Old Dominion will lean on sophomore skipper Kyle Rogachenko with veteran crew Alissa Ayres. Ayres has been crew during two women's dinghy championship events and has been a constant presence in A division throughout her career.
Sailing begins on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. EST. Results can be found on the USC Sailing website at http://www.uscsailing.org/2008_Western_Semi-finals.htm. Also stay tuned to odusports.com for updates throughout the weekend.