{"id":317023,"date":"2026-06-01T01:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T01:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/317023\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T01:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T01:14:13","slug":"ncaa-sunday-here-comes-texas-and-how-ncaa-championships-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/317023\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Sunday: ‘Here Comes Texas!’ (And How!) – NCAA Championships coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the racecourse on Georgia’s Lake Lanier had finally cleared after the final of the DI women’s varsity eight, most observers agreed that they’d just witnessed likely the fastest women’s regatta in rowing history. With all six crews in the 1V final finishing at 6:00 or faster (and Texas crossing the line in a scorching 5:47), three crews in the 2V breaking 6:00 and the top Varsity Fours finishing between 6:35 and 6:42, this finals day at the NCAAs was historical. <\/p>\n


\nThird-seeded Texas took the 1V and V4 races, and finished second in the 2V to clinch the team title. Stanford, team champs last year, finished second in the 1V and won the 2V to keep it close, adding points from a fifth-place finish in the four (more on that below). Tennessee finished third as a team, matching their highest finish ever, while UVA, who were 10th last year, bolted back into the national conversation by finishing fourth. <\/p>\n


\n1V Eight <\/p>\n


\nIn the final race of the day, the Texas 1V moved out on the field methodically, and while they never fully broke away from a tenacious Stanford crew as well as a very game Tennessee boat (which handed Texas a loss at the SEC champs three weeks ago), the Texas crew looked swift and sure. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

The Texas 1V on the podium<\/p>\n


\n“All nine of them, they are just killer competitors,” said Texas head coach Dave O’Neill. “They’re all really experienced, but they’ve all had to work really hard to get to where they are.” <\/p>\n


\n“For example, [four seat] Marg Van der Wal, she was an Under-23 World champion in the pair last year, but she had a bit of an injury, and she had to switch sides in February. She didn’t row for about five or six weeks, things came to a grinding halt, so we said ‘let’s just switch to port and make it work,’ and she embraced it and kicked butt.” <\/p>\n


\nFor O’Neill, the loss to Tennessee at the SEC championships on May 10th seemed to galvanize the the team. <\/p>\n


\n“As a rowing fan, it was cool to see Tennessee win the SEC championship,” said O’Neill. “As the Texas coach, it wasn’t so great! Within our team, we’ve talked about, ‘there are no problems, there are only solutions.’ I was determined that we were not going to let the whole thing go sideways, that we were going to turn this into a positive. The week afterwards, it was hard, there were some tough moments for sure.” <\/p>\n


\n“We had a meeting on the Monday after the SECs, and I said, ‘here’s why we lost.’ I’d been seeing some corners being cut, some shortcuts being made, some things not being done as well as we could for the last four weeks or so. I think that it was a wake-up call, not that we needed to do things differently, we just needed to do it better. A theme for this year has been to make the most of the opportunity, to make the most of every day, and, to be honest, we hadn’t been there for a few weeks. <\/p>\n


\n“To the team’s credit, they acknowledged it and embraced it, rather than being defensive. I told them ‘it’s my fault that I’ve allowed us to get a little bit lazy,’ so we buckled down and got to work.” <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

Texas post-race celebrations<\/p>\n


\nAs far as adjustments went, O’Neill said that Texas tried just about everything. <\/p>\n


\n“In order for a crew to go faster, you can do one of three things: you can stick with the people that you have in the lineup that you have and just try to make that better, or you can change within the crew, maybe switching the seats, or you can try different people in there, and I would say we tried all of it! Ultimately, we ended up with the same lineup that we had, but we sort of looked at other things, but we decided we’re going to stick together, and it’s going to be okay.” <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

Tennesse finished 3rd…<\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

…while UVA finished 4th<\/p>\n


\nTennessee was third, and a surging UVA crew finished fourth (as predicted a few weeks back by our friends at cMax<\/a>), followed by Yale and Princeton rounding out the fastest NCAA final in history. <\/p>\n


\n2V Eight <\/p>\n


\nThe Stanford 2V completed an undefeated season at Lake Lanier, holding off Texas and UVA to win the final by about six seats. Stanford’s winning time in the event was an otherworldly 5:52. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

The Stanford 2V crosses the line<\/p>\n


\nThe Texas 2V gave it their best shot, putting in a strong push in the last quarter of the race, but came up short. <\/p>\n


\n“I knew that we were an underdog,” said Texas’ O’Neill. “We changed that boat after the loss to Stanford in April, and they’ve been getting better and better. The theme for them heading into today, was that that Stanford second eight has been fast for years.” <\/p>\n


\nVirginia finished in third, with Tennessee, Princeton and Yale completing the final. <\/p>\n


\nVarsity Four <\/p>\n


\nThe final of the Varsity Four was the race of the day, but perhaps not in the kindest way for all competitors. Stanford’s crew, which had shown stunning speed all weekend, led Texas in a two-boat race all the way down the course. As the crews came into the final 250 meters, and the Texas crew had just begun to edge ahead, a rower in the Stanford boat caught a crab that stopped the crew dead in their lane. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

The Stanford V4 crabbed late in the race<\/p>\n


\nTexas pushed ahead to finish first, while Tennessee, Washington and Rutgers all passed the Stanford crew before the Cardinal could get the boat fully moving again. <\/p>\n


\nFor Texas, who timed their sprint to perfection, the key was staying in contact. “We told them, ‘you guys are strong, you’re you’re fit, you have 2000 meters, but you have to get in the race in the first 500 meters.’,” said Texas’ O’Neill. “They did exactly that. They’re really built for 2000 meter speed, and they executed it perfectly.” <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

The Texas V4 timed their race to perfection<\/p>\n


\n“I’m glad that they got ahead of Stanford before the heartbreak, and I’m glad that the crab for Stanford did not determine the end result for this whole championship.” <\/p>\n


\nTeam Results <\/p>\n


\nIt’s a perennial matchup at this point, with either Texas or Stanford winning the team title in each of the last six years. Coming into the weekend, the teams were knotted at three titles apiece; Texas won their fourth title today, with all the wins coming since 2021. <\/p>\n


\n“There are some very skilled, talented, strong individual athletes in there, but I think what’s really special is they’re wonderful people,” said O’Neill. “We talk a lot about being the best Texas teammate you can be, being teammate in terms of bringing out the best in each other, lifting your teammates up, and they’ve fully embraced that.” <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

Texas<\/p>\n


\nStanford doesn’t need to hang their heads in second; the team has finished no lower than 2nd place in the past six years, a remarkable run of high-achieving consistency. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

Stanford<\/p>\n


\nTennessee came into the regatta ranked #1, and while they may have not reached the top step of the podium this year, finishing third, the Vols under coach Kim Cupini have established themselves firmly in the national conversation at this point. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

Tennessee<\/p>\n


\nThe biggest surge this year came from Virginia; the Cavs improved from 10th place last year to finish fourth, and earned their first NCAA top-four finish since 2016. <\/p>\n


\n“Big picture, this was our first top 4 finish in a decade, and it represented a big effort from the collective – our alumnae, parents, department, and student-athletes,” said first-year UVA coach Wes Ng. “This year was about improving our ability to concentrate and focus no matter where each athlete started. We wanted to build our reserves so that we could attack the last two weeks of racing far better. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

UVA<\/p>\n


\n“This result is something our team earned, but I don’t think anyone in our program views it as a finish line. We have tremendous respect for the teams ahead of us, and we now have a clearer picture of what championship speed looks like. Our responsibility is to come back next year better than we are today. That’s the challenge, and it’s an exciting one.” <\/p>\n


\nKudos as well to the two first-time NCAA competitors from Miami and Columbia, who finished 13th and 15th, respectively. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

Olympic rings and fast water<\/p>\n


\nAt the conclusion of the regatta, Texas’ O’Neill reflected on how his approach to the next season has changed. <\/p>\n


\n“I think the older I’ve become, the longer I allow myself to cherish and enjoy a result like this,” he said. “We’re set up well for the future, we’re going to be fine next year, but I’m going to enjoy this for a long, long time. I just said to the team that I’ve realized the only thing that we have in the end is the moments, the experiences, and the memories, and to make sure that I’m enjoying what’s happening on the day to day.” <\/p>\n


\nNotes from the Course <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

Texas 1V coxbox<\/p>\n


\nDespite all of the banter about the speed of this regatta, the times at the 2026 NCAAs won’t be counted as any kind of official “world best times,” or suchlike — those times are kept from FISA-managed events only. Still, the growth in speed of women’s rowing has been remarkable; as the commentary team pointed out during the live broadcast, the winning times from the first NCAA women’s rowing championships were about a minute slower than the times here today. See for yourself in the 1997 row2k results archive<\/a>. <\/p>\n


\nAnd, for viewers who have been wondering about whether the Lanier course is an accurate 2k, here’s the tale of the GPS, from the Texas 1V coxbox. <\/p>\n

\"NCAA <\/p>\n

National Champions!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the racecourse on Georgia’s Lake Lanier had finally cleared after the final of the DI women’s varsity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-317023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}