Ranked as high as No. 9 in the country last fall, the sailing team is focused on one thing this spring: a return to Nationals, where early last summer the team finished in an impressive 10th place. And with two weekends of regattas under their belt and high expectations to fulfill, the No. 15 Jumbos are ready to kick it into high gear as the season heats up.
"I think we're pretty psyched," senior tri−captain Margaret Rew said. "The thing about the spring season is that it's a sprint. We spend all winter getting mentally prepared for it, but as soon as the gun goes off this coming weekend, we're at a full sprint the rest of the semester."
The Jumbos are coming off a successful fall season in which they were consistently ranked in the top 15 teams nationally. The team last November finished eighth overall at the Atlantic Coast Championship, with junior tri−captain Massimo Soriano and sophomore Amelia Quinn capturing sixth place in the A Division. Quinn is also a features editor for the Daily.
Based on the team's fall results, the Sailing World College Rankings has Tufts at No. 15 in the country, while the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association has ranked the Jumbos No. 7 in New England behind rivals Vermont, Brown, Roger Williams, Yale, Boston College and Harvard.
"I think we don't get too nervous about rankings," Rew said. "We've been sitting in the top 20 in the nation for 30 years now, so it's really nothing too new. It has a lot more to do with the other teams and sort of seeing how it's going to play out against them."
The squad, which includes 23 freshmen, spent much of the offseason in the weight room, according to Soriano.
"A lot of our team members practiced over winter break on their own, and since we've gotten back from break we also started having weekly meetings to get us in the right mental state for the season," Soriano said.
But there's still one dilemma for the Jumbos heading into their spring season — Upper Mystic Lake in Medford has yet to thaw out.
"It's been a little tough to practice because our lake is still frozen," Soriano said. "We've been sailing on the weekends and whenever we can scavenge a practice together. We sailed down at BU a couple times and even made the trek down to Roger Williams twice, two weeks ago."
But even an iced−over lake hasn't stopped the Jumbos from competing.
"They've really been warm−ups — the way our coach puts is that they're just ‘practice hours on the water,'" Rew said. "We weren't up against the best competition, but we definitely showed that we can dominate and hold our position against the teams that we should be able to."
At the Thames River Team Race at Conn. College on March 5 and 6, its first regatta of the season, Tufts dominated its New England competition.
The Jumbos' A Division team won the regatta and the B team finished fifth in the eight−team field.
The Jumbos also competed in two more regattas this weekend: the Wood Trophy at Salve Regina University and the Team Racing Invite at MIT. The Truxtun Umsted Trophy, the team's first real challenge of the season, takes place this weekend at Navy.
At the helm of the sailing team is Ken Legler, who enters his 31st year as head coach of the squad. In his career at Tufts, Legler has coached 19 national championship teams as well as 92 All−Americans. Legler's experience and success should keep the Jumbos on course throughout the spring.
Standout freshman Will Haeger is a key sailor to watch this season. The brother of a two−time women's All−American sailor at Boston College, Haeger will be moving up to the team−race squad this spring.
As for season−long goals, Tufts is simply hoping for another successful postseason run.
"One of our main goals is to qualify for all the national competitions," Soriano said. "Last year we had an exciting post season, as we qualified for all three, the women's Nationals, the coed Nationals and the team racing Nationals."
Rew is equally confident in her team's potential this spring.
"I think sailing is a lot about peaking at the right time, and we're ready to build off of last fall," Rew said. "What I'm really looking for this spring is to be able to build off of our whole season from last semester and really peak at the end of this season to do well in the postseason."
