ORLANDO - The UCF rowing team is set to travel to West Windsor, N.J. for their first appearance at the NCAA Championship since 2019.
The Knights are set for action on day one as they compete in heats to open up the weekend. The first to race will be the First 8+ competing in heat four in the fifth lane. UCF is set to face competition in Northeastern, Virginia, Washington, Princeton and Rhode Island during the heat race. It will be the first time all season that the Knights will face these programs. In addition to the Knights, several other squads in this heat received automatic bids by winning their respective conference championship including Northeastern, Washington and Rhode Island.
The next race of the day will be the Second 8+ who will be racing during heat three in lane two. The Knights will face Northeastern, Tennessee, Princeton, Michigan and Fairfield. The Black and Gold will face off against the Volunteers for the second time this season following the inaugural Rocky Top Invite earlier this spring.
The final race of the morning will be the First 4+ heat as UCF competes in heat three in lane five. The fellow boats of five include Boston University, California, Syracuse, Rutgers and Fairfield. This race will also include multiple conference champions in Boston University and Fairfield.
Following the day of heat races, Saturday morning will feature semifinal races slated to begin at 8:12 a.m. starting with the First 8+. The day is set to conclude with the First 4+ semifinals wrapping at 10:30 a.m. The crews will compete to advance to either the Grand Finals, Petite Finals, C Finals or D Finals on Sunday morning. The weekend will conclude with an awards ceremony beginning at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.
This will be the Knight’s first time hitting the water since winning their first-ever Big 12 title. Head Coach Mara Allen as well as rowers Luna Kuiper and Ines Martin sat down to speak about the big win in Sarasota as well as expectations for the NCAA Championship this weekend. Their conversation can be found here.
This weekend’s event will be broadcast live on the NCAA website. Results for each race can be found here.