April 19, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - The North Carolina women's rowing team finished fourth Saturday at the 2003 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship, hosted by Virginia at Lake Monticello. The Cavaliers won their fourth consecutive conference crown, taking first place in all four events.

Virginia finished the day with 40 points. Duke was second with 29, and Clemson followed with 21. UNC was fourth with 10.

Carolina's Kara Kerscher, a senior captain, was named to the nine-member All-ACC team. She joined Molly Baker (Virginia), Amelia Booth (Duke), Joanna Hingle (Duke), Emily Kuivila (Clemson), Julie McQueen (Virginia), Kate Niebauer (Clemson), Jen Reck (Virginia) and coxswain Betty Shumaker (Virginia) on the squad. Virginia coach Kevin Sauer was named the ACC Coach of the Year and the Virginia varsity eight was selected as ACC Crew of the Year.

The four schools raced varsity eights, second varsity eights, varsity fours and novice eights, with preliminaries in the morning and finals in the afternoon. The top two teams from the morning's races met for first and second places in the finals, while the other two teams raced for third and fourth in the petite finals.

In the varsity eight, Virginia finished in 6:47.9, beating second-place Duke (6:55.2). In the petite final, Clemson finished in 6:55.8, UNC in 7:09.1.

In the second varsity eight, Virginia (6:52.9) again defeated Duke (7:08.1). In the petite final, Clemson (7:09.1) finished ahead of UNC (7:22.1).

In the varsity four, Virginia won in 7:44.0 and Duke took second in 7:57.5. In the petite final, Clemson won in 8:01.4 and Carolina, which raced all novices, finished in 7:20.4.

In the novice eight, Virginia (7:02.0) defeated Clemson (7:10.7) in the final, while Duke (7:11.7) beat UNC (7:20.4) in the petite final.