Recap: Day 1 at ACRA National Championships

Today the Illini took to the water in the Novice Women's 4+ and Novice Men's 4+. The Novice Women, lead by stroke seat Meridith Kisting and coxswain Samantha Sanders, finished comfortably in second place behind Vanderbilt - well ahead of third place Oregon and the rest of the field. By finishing among the top three in their heat, they advance directly to the Grand Finals tomorrow. The Novice Women will race at 9:28am Eastern Time for the national title. In the Novice Men's heat, the men rowed a very tough race against a deep field. The race ended with the Illini in a 4-way battle for 4th place - with less than 100 meters left, the Novice Men passed a faltering University of Chicago crew to capture fourth. By finishing outside of the top three, Illinois was relegated to the repechage (a second opportunity for crews from the heats to make it into the Grand Finals). Faced with a must-win scenario, the Fighting Illini held race leaders Vanderbilt and UNC to 1/2 of a boat length up to the 1250m mark, but UNC proved to have more stamina and finished well up on Illinois. The Novice Men, including stroke Brandon Holland and coxswain Genevieve Linchango, will race tomorrow morning in the Petite Finals hoping to capture on of the top two spots to earn a spot among the top-10 in the nation.The day finished with an awards ceremony for the All-Regional Winners, with Novice Danielle Saubert being named to the First Boat All-Great Lakes.Results will be posted as they happen during the regatta over Twitter. You can follow the feed, or find the updates here on the home page.