Crowned in California: Rowing Wins NCAA National Championship

GOLD RIVER, Calif. -- Barry University rowing entered the 2015 season with one mission: to win a national championship.

Mission accomplished.

In their ninth trip to the NCAA Division II Championships, the Buccaneers won their first national championship in program history Sunday. It marks the university's 15^th national title overall.

"It feels good," Barry second-year head coach Boban Rankovic said. "That's how it's supposed to feel when all your hard work leads you to a national championship. The team came together in the most amazing way. They cheered for each other, and supported each other. It was absolutely the best thing that you can have in a team."

Despite dealing with a strong head wind, the Bucs won both the Varsity 4+ and 8+ finals, finishing ahead of runner-up Mercyhurst in both races. Barry's Varsity 4+ boat won a tight race -- one it actually trailed for a little over half of the Lake Natoma course. The Buccaneers were a foot behind the Mercyhurst boat for much of the first 1,000 meters, but began to gain ground around the 1,500-meter mark, taking about a one-second lead. Over the final 500 meters, the Bucs widened their lead to finish nearly three seconds in front of the Lakers with a time of 7:49.155.

"I saw it in the last 500 meters of the race when the boat was ahead by one foot, and I knew that's all they needed to win," Rankovic said of his Varsity 4 rowers' performances. "They really stepped it up today. It was a tight race, but they had been waiting for that moment, and they took it."

Still, the job wasn't finished. To capture the national championship, the Bucs needed to win the Varsity 8+ Grand Final.

That they did.

In a start similar to the Varsity 4 Final, the Varsity 8 race was a tight struggle between Barry and Mercyhurst in the early going. Barry led by less than a half-second at the 500-meter mark, but by the midway point the Buccaneers built over a three-second lead. Barry pulled away from the field to win the Grand Final by over eight seconds with a time of 7:11.548, claiming the National Championship in dominating fashion -- one that mirrored the entire season.

The Bucs won every Division II Varsity race they competed in 2015, and did not let up on the biggest stage to take home their first national championship trophy.

"They were in such a zone as you should be at the national championship level," Rankovic of his Varsity 8 boat. "They didn't even need to know that the Varsity 4 boat had won their race."

Barry won the title with 20 points. Mercyhurst finished second with 15. Humboldt State was third with eight, and Central Oklahoma fourth with seven. 

Reflecting on his team's season, Rankovic was full of appreciation and admiration.

"Watching them one stroke at a time was kind of amazing and beautiful because when you coach these girls day-in and day-out, you get to know them very well, and you see how hard they work and how much they wanted it," he said. "We did not think of our previous races. We focused on the race at hand.That's the beauty of this team, they've always felt that each race is its own, and that they always had to gear up and give 100 percent.

"We came to earn the right to be national champions."