Welcome to This Week in Sports. We are The Daily’s sports editors, Madeline Grabb and Ells Boone, and we’ll be walking you through the major games, events and stories from the past week, as well as providing a brief preview of what’s coming up this week.
This weekend saw women’s rowing claim Stanford’s third NCAA title of the academic year, avenging its back-to-back runner-up placings from 2021 and 2022. Wins in the first and second varsity eight races in Sunday’s Grand Final brought home the program’s first national crown since 2009 with 129 points. Washington took second, and Princeton rounded out the top three. The Cardinal’s season also included earning their second straight Pac-12 championship earlier this month.
Defending NCAA Champion No. 1 women’s golf fell to USC in the semifinals of this year’s tournament to conclude its season. On Friday, two-time NCAA individual champion sophomore Rose Zhang announced her decision to turn pro after dominant amateur and collegiate results. While Zhang will continue her undergraduate degree and training at Stanford’s facilities, she will open her professional career at this week’s upcoming Mizuho Americas Open.
In a program first, the Cardinal claimed an inaugural national championship in women’s sailing. Stanford glided its way to victory in the ICSA Women’s Fleet Race Nationals on Friday, securing a team crown for just the second time in school history. The Cardinal will have two more national championship opportunities before the end of the month at the ICSA Open Team Race Nationals and ICSA Open Fleet Race Nationals, respectively.
Ninth-seeded softball retained its undefeated status in the postseason, handing eighth-seeded Duke a pair of upsets in the Super Regionals to move on to its first NCAA Women’s College World Series in almost two decades. The Cardinal bested the Blue Devils 3-1 on Friday, and followed up their victory with a 7-2 win on Saturday. They will begin World Series play on Thursday against a formidable opponent in No. 1 Oklahoma.
With the NCAA team championships over, postseason action continued for No. 18 men’s tennis in the singles and doubles events. Junior Arthur Fery, seeded third, defeated three players in the top 50 before falling in the quarterfinals. Freshmen Nishesh Basavareddy and Samir Banerjee both made their tournament debuts, bowing out in the round of 16 and second round, respectively. A fourth Stanford athlete, sophomore Max Basing, was set to participate but withdrew due to injury. Fery and Basavareddy also paired up to make a run to the round of 16 in doubles.
No. 3 baseball headed to Scottsdale, Ariz. for the Pac-12 Tournament. The Cardinal beat Cal 18-10 in the opener, and though they lost to Oregon in 10 innings in the next round, Stanford moved on thanks to a tiebreaker. Arizona came out swinging in the semifinals to defeat the Cardinal 14-4 and end their conference tournament run. Stanford looks now to the NCAA Tournament field announcement on Monday to find out its postseason prospects.
Track & Field competed in the NCAA West Prelims this week, with athletes qualifying for the national meet in a variety of both individual and relay events. Among the qualifiers for the NCAA Championships to be held in Austin, Texas were Udodi Onwuzurike (men’s 100, posting a meet-best time), Alyssa Jones (women’s long jump), Taylor James (women’s 800), Lucy Jenks (women’s 5,000), Ky Robinson and Charles Hicks (men’s 500), John Kroeger (men’s long jump) and Garrett Brown (men’s pole vault). Stanford also qualified teams for relay events, including the women’s 4×400-meter relay and the men’s and women’s 4×100-meter relay (both qualified with school record-setting times).
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