The No. 3-ranked College of Charleston sailing team won the 2012 SAISA Team Race Championships on Saturday to advance to the ICSA Team Race National Championship on June 3-5 in Lake Travis, Texas.
All three round-robins were completed with great sailing and great officiating on the Cooper River in Charleston Harbor. The Cougars compiled an 11-1 record over the three rounds for first-place honors followed by Miami (Fla.) in second with a 9-3 record to clinch the other district national berth.
All of the five teams in the field benefited from talented officials hailing from Annapolis, Md., Florida and North Carolina, who observed each of the races. USF (7-5) finished in third followed by Eckerd College (3-9) in fourth and Florida (0-12) in fifth.
“We sailed very well today and made very few mistakes,” CofC Director of Sailing Greg Fisher said. “We were strong off the start and sailed consistently and fast throughout the race.”
Leading CofC in the first two round-robins were senior All-American skipper Zeke Horowitz (Sarasota, Fla.) and junior crew Cory DeCollibus (Duxbury, Mass.); junior All-American skipper Mac Mace (Newport Beach, Calif.) and senior All-American crew Perry Emsiek (Corona del Mar, Calif.); and junior skipper Ben Spector (Santa Clarita, Calif.) and senior All-American crew Alyssa Aitken (Sandwich, Mass.).
The Cougars went a perfect 4-0 in each of the first two rotations, but posted a 3-1 mark in the third and final rotation with a loss to Miami using the combinations of junior skipper Chris Banholzer (Hartland, Wis.) and Ben Spector; junior skipper Brooks Clark (Newport Beach, Calif.) and junior crew Jeff Aschieris (Newport Beach, Calif.) and senior skipper Sam Stokes (Norfolk, Va.) and Perry Emsiek.
