STANFORD, Calif. – The Stanford women’s rowing team celebrated its season, honored its six seniors and handed out its yearly awards at the annual team banquet on Thursday.
The top honor for the team’s Most Valuable Athlete of the Year was awarded to junior Ellie Parker. Alie Rusher received the Rookie of the Year honor. Naomi Cornman earned the Leadership Award. Nicole Gilmore was selected Most Inspirational and Simone Jacobs was tabbed the Most Improved Athlete of the Year.
All six seniors were honored with a wooden plaque that featured a Stanford oar on it. The senior class helped the Cardinal to its first Pac-12 Championship in 2014 and finished in the top 10 at the NCAA Championships all four years. The class included Courtney Carrabino (international relations), Alix Chrumka (biology), Naomi Cornman (international relations and French), Nicole Gilmore (biology), Amanda Lorei (English) and Nancy Miles (human biology).
The team leadership committee was also honored. The committee was made up of at least one individual from each class and included seniors Courtney Carrabino and Naomi Cornman, junior Katie Toothman, sophomore Ruth Narode and freshman Anne Bertram.
Afterwards the team leaders for 2015-16 were announced. They were senior Katie Toothman, juniors Ruth Narode and Reilly Hayes, sophomore Anne Bertram and a freshman to be announced.
At the NCAA Championships, head coach Yasmin Farooq said that she was “blown away” by how far the team had come from the beginning to the end of the 2014-15 season.
The team stepped up to the challenge of replacing eight seniors from NCAA lineups the year before, placing sixth at the NCAA Championships in Gold River, Calif. At the end of the day, each boat could honestly say that they were racing their best all year on the final weekend of the season.
The varsity eight was among the three fastest boats over the course of the season. Making the Grand Final in back-to-back years was a big accomplishment for a group that featured two individuals from the previous year’s varsity four and one that was an alternate. The entire lineup stepped up race in and race out to challenge some of the nation’s top teams. The varsity eight finished fifth at the NCAA Championships and earned silver at the Pac-12 Championships. That boat won five races overall on the year.
The second varsity eight had some struggles early in the season and never seemed to find the recipe to move them from good to great. That was until the NCAA Championships. They qualified for the A/B semifinal and put together a strong race only to fall a fraction of a second off a spot in the Grand Final. Motivated instead of defeated, the 2V8 came back the next day with its best race of the year to win the petite final and place seventh overall. Senior Courtney Carrabino called it “my favorite race of my career.”
The varsity four included three freshmen at NCAA’s and four freshmen for much of the season. The boat was faced with having to qualify for the A/B semifinal through the repechage at the NCAA Championships. Racing for the second time that day, they won the race to advance. They would later end up in the petite final and place third for ninth overall. The boat showed a lot of improvement from the beginning to end of the year.
Now that the 2014-15 season has come to a close it is a great time to reflect on many of the positive moments from the year such as amazing sunrises and sunsets for winter training, a team bonding trip to Big Sur, seven freshmen in regular lineups, freshman rower Devin Norder filling a void at coxswain for two regattas, alum Daphne Martschenko making history at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race and Naomi Cornman being named Pac-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year. Next up: 2015-16.
