NORFOLK, Va. – In the team's second national championship appearance of the 2017-18 season, the Roger Williams University Sailing team earned a sixth-place finish at the ICSA/Gill Coed National Championship.
 
The Hawks finished in second in the LaserPerformance Team Race National Championship a few days earlier.
 
On the first day of competition of the Eastern Semifinal, the Hawks came out strong early on, putting up 21 points highlighted by five top-three results between A Division and B Division over the first three races. RWU would hold a slim two-point lead over Navy. After two more A Division races and one B Division race, they would sit in second place with 41 points, just four points behind Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
 
On day two, the Hawks regained a one-point lead after the two B Division races, posting two fourth-place showings to go up 49 points to 50 on Hobart & William Smith. However the Statesmen got a huge boost to take the lead over the next two A and B Division races, winning both A races and finishing third and second at B. RWU would take sixth and eighth at A and 10^th and first at B, dropping to third place. Over the final two A and B races, the Hawks climbed back into second place but still trailed Hobart & William Smith by 27 points. However, RWU would easily earn a spot to Nationals among the final 18-team field.
 
The Hawks took to the water in 12 races in the first day of Nationals. The first three races between A Division and B Division saw RWU collect a best result of fifth place, coming in the third B Division race. RWU would tally 55 points and find themselves in eighth place. The Hawks slipped to ninth over the next two races, but rallied in the sixth race at A Division (2^nd) and B Division (5^th) to move up to seventh.
 
Over the next four races, RWU fared better at A Division, putting together two fifth-place results and one seventh-place race. At B Division, the Hawks tallied a pair of ninth-place showings during that same stretch. Roger Williams would improve their position to sixth entering the final two races of the day. A Division would place fifth and 14^th, while B Division went 13^th and fifth. RWU would go into day two in fifth place.
 
On the final day of competition, the regatta suffered from a lack of stable wind throughout the day. Only two races were able to be sailed, with RWU finishing in fourth in both races at A Division and 11^th and eighth at B Division. The Hawks would take sixth place overall while MIT won the championship.
 
Mackenzie Bryan (Christiansted, USVI) and Jennifer Agell (Huntington, N.Y.) placed seventh for Roger Williams at A Division while Martim Anderson (Lisbon, Portugal) and Rebecca Anderson (Northport, N.Y.) also finished seventh at B Division.