SPRING ‘25 COACHES REPORT — WOMEN
Assistant Coach Antonella Kugler on behalf of the SWC Coaching Staff
THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK
The 2024—2025 season was an absolute banner year for Stanford Women’s Crew that culminated with our fourth consecutive Conference Championship and third Team National Championship.
First and absolutely foremost, this year’s success would not have been possible without the Class of 2025: Luise Bachmann, Analiese Bancroft, Lucy Burrell, Julietta Camahort, Aliza Fisher, Sonia Gnatowska, Schuyler Hyde, Iris Klok, Fiona Mooney, Lily Moore, Paloma Sequiera, and Julia Veith. The compassionate leadership and diligent effort of these twelve women over the course of their collegiate careers cultivated a team culture that helped propel Stanford Women’s Rowing to our 2025 National Championship.
Thank you XXV, LB AB LB JC AF SG SH IK FM LM PS & JV.
Let’s rewind to Tuesday, September 24, 2024, where our story begins. Before jumping into our first of many Arrillaga Hall sessions, Derek brought the team together to lay out our three goals for the year:
1. Win a National Team Championship
2. Win ACCs
3. Own the little stuff.
Then, we rolled up our unis, grabbed our water bottles, fruit snacks, and got to work.
Fall Quarter
Fall training consisted of fundamentals: steady meters acquired on the water, erg, and berg (bike erg) while building our Stanford Rhythm. To spice things up out in the Bay, Associate Head Coach, Molly Hamrick, cooked up the idea of “Head of the Port,” a 3500 meter course that allowed us to race each other (almost) every Thursday morning in fours and eights.
To kick off our Fall competitions, we headed up to Briones to race Cal at our annual “Little Row” scrimmage. Each team raced four eights and at the end of the day we got all crews together to run eight eights across! Little Row is a scrimmage so no results are officially logged, but we did indeed #BeatCal.
The following weekend, we drove the trailer South to the San Diego Fall Classic loaded up with four eights, five fours, and one quad. Three of our eights in the top three and all five of our fours in the top five, however, it was the win in the Women’s Masters 4x that was our proudest team moment that weekend. #TeamTwoSticks
Winter Quarter
Once reunited in January for Winter Quarter, the Type 2 fun began. Monday afternoons on the ergs became a team bonding staple, typically ending with a cooldown singalong to “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus. Out on the water, Derek coined the phrase Brain Juice, noun: 1. The liquid that you might see oozing out of an SWC rowers ears during a technical session of drilling and steady state; 2. The name of SWC’s newest four shell
As the Brain Juice started flowing, we tested our Stanford Rhythm at higher rates and could almost taste the racing season.
But first, we needed one final touch: a senior racing uni design that would deliver free speed. The seniors put together a beautiful presentation, with help from Tara VanDerveer, former Head Coach for Stanford Women’s Basketball and current Special Advisor to the Athletics Director. The design revealed a black top and bottom with red stripes down the sides and “Stanford” across the chest above the “Block S” logo and on the back “XXV” to represent Class of 2025. The design was inspired by the Stanford Women's Basketball’s 2021 National Championship uniforms.
Spring Quarter
Unis in hand, we kicked off our racing season in beautiful Oak Ridge, Tennessee with a few days of Spring Break training before facing #3 University of Tennessee. We came out swinging and won all four events against the Volunteers.
Next, we hosted our first Atlantic Coast Conference meet at Redwood Shores, racing #11 Syracuse and #10 Virginia. With buzzing energy all around, we dominated the competition and walked away with wins in all events.
Then, we faced #1 Texas on their home course and successfully accomplished our mission with wins in 4 out of 5 events. We celebrated our wins with a “Whose House? C-House,” chant and Terry Black’s BBQ.
To conclude our regular season competitions, we faced Cal for #BigRow and came away with another victorious morning at Redwood Shores.
Championship Season
At ACCs, all five crews raced brilliantly. We swept our first-ever ACC Championship and secured our fourth consecutive conference title, a first in program history.
At NCAAs, Stanford arrived as the top-ranked team in all three events. On Sunday, June 1, 2025, we were one of four teams with three boats in the Grand Finals. We knew we wanted to be the greediest team on the water and score the most points possible.
The Varsity 4+ kicked the day off with program history: our first-ever National Championship in that event.
The Second Varsity 8+ followed with a commanding win, securing first place within the first two minutes.
The First Varsity 8+ finished second, sealing our third Team National Championship in program history.
Our Pack
This year, Derek introduced us to the Yellowstone Wolf Project and wolves became our symbol.
“The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”
—Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
The strength of SWC 2024—2025 came from our training, our culture, and our support system.
Thank you to our pack: alumni, parents, friends, family, and every supporter of Stanford Women’s Crew for helping us execute our three goals this year.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
