With numerous top-five finishes over the holiday weekend, the sailing team is hitting its stride and simultaneously solidifying its reputation as one of the top teams in the nation.
Some of Tufts' big guns headed to the Coast Guard Academy over the weekend to partake in the Hap Moore Team Race. As team racing is one of Tufts' strong points, the nationally ranked No. 6 Jumbos emerged successful from the regatta, sailing to a third-place finish out of 11 teams.
The team-race format lends itself well to crews with good cohesion and teamwork, as opposed to relying on each individual boat to take on a fleet by itself. Team races are essentially round robins, with squads sailing against one another in a head-to-head format. The best three-boat combination wins the race. The Jumbos won seven of those 10 head-to-head battles, losing only to Boston College, St. Mary's and Roger Williams, the national No. 1, 3, and 4 teams, respectively.
In the second day of racing, the 11 teams were split into a Gold Division of the top six and a Silver Division of the remaining five based on their Saturday performances. At the end of the day, the Jumbos sat atop all of these teams, winning the Gold Division and exacting vengeance on the three teams that had beaten them the previous day.
"We went over what our weaknesses were [on Saturday] to tighten everything up," junior Tomas Hornos said. "Sail cleanly, no stupid mistakes … Every team in the Gold was stacked. We knew what we had to do, and then we just [went out and did it]."
The three Tufts boats were sailed by seniors Peter Bermudez and Francine Magasinn; Hornos and senior tri-captain Lara Hwa; and senior tri-captain Baker Potts and classmate Christina Kelly. With the thought of missing out on Team Race Nationals last spring still fresh in their minds, these team leaders believe the successful outing will set a precedent.
"Our goal is definitely to make Nationals," Hornos said. "We've been good at team racing, which shows we have more depth than most schools. We need to clean up, go over more specific case scenarios and be ready for every situation. [We need to] solidify all the rules [and] get our boat handling down perfect. We're pretty confident."
Elsewhere on New England waters, Jumbo sailors showed the team's immense depth from top to bottom. Several freshmen had standout performances this weekend, in particular the class' top sailing recruit, Massimo Soriano. He skippered Tufts' B-division boat with fellow freshman Emily Shaw crewing in the Barnett Trophy at Casco Bay, which is hosted by Bowdoin College.
Not only did Soriano excel, but he won the B division with an astounding 30 points, compared to the next-best score of 41. He hid his inexperience on the collegiate circuit well, winning five of the 12 total races in which he sailed. Soriano's 30 points marked the best score of any boat in either division, and his performance helped lead the Jumbos, whose other boat was sailed by seniors Robby Moore and Amanda Harwood, to a second-place overall effort in the regatta.
"Massimo is showing a lot of potential; he's definitely one of the best freshmen," Hornos said. "He's really committed. He's shown he can do well in regattas so far; he's got a bright future."
On the other end of New England, three Jumbo sailors raced in the NE Singlehanded Championships hosted by Yale University. In a field of 33 boats, junior Andrew Criezis came in sixth with 100 points, freshman Andrew Foster took 14th with 167 points, and sophomore Jamie Altreuter landed in 16th with 182 points.
For Criezis, who has steadily solidified his mark as one of the top singlehanded racers in the country by finishing fourth at New Englands last year and seventh at Singlehanded Nationals, the sixth-place finish is not good enough to gain eligibility for the National Championship, for which only the top four finishers qualified. Still, Criezis was satisfied with the way he performed against stiff competition.
"I felt pretty good," he said. "I was really fast and could keep up with the guys at the front, but I wasn't as consistent … I was glad I could keep up with the top sailors and give them a run for their money.
"There was light air and challenging conditions," he continued. "After the first day, I was in fifth, but I couldn't put together a good string of finishes at the end and didn't qualify."
One of the top sailors Criezis faced was junior Thomas Barrows from Yale, who finished third overall. Barrows, who grew up sailing with Tufts junior Nate Rosenberg, represented the U.S. Virgin Islands at the Beijing Olympics in singlehanded competition over the summer. Criezis understood full well the implications of what he accomplished over the weekend.
"I was competing with an Olympian and giving him a run for a spot in Nationals," he said.
Overall, Tufts' roster saw much success this weekend. The women's team placed second at the Women's Olympians Trophy, juniors Reeve Dunne and Nereus Patel won the University of New Hampshire Invite, and numerous freshmen achieved solid outcomes in some of their first collegiate regattas, including freshman Nicolas Russo-Larsson, who pulled out a second-place finish in the A division of the Protest Trophy at Roger Williams with classmate Jordana Hanselman.
"We're all pretty happy," Hornos said. "We know that we're doing well and we're pretty optimistic."
