The Exeter Boys and Girls first boats, having both won at the NEIRA Championship Regatta, earned spots at the 2008 USRowing Junior National Championships at Harsha Lake outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. This morning, both boats raced other crews from around the country in the preliminary heats.

The regatta takes place over the course of three days, due its double elimination format. Unlike the single elimination format of NEIRAs, crews get a second chance to make it to the semifinals (and, by association, the grand finals) regardless of their performance in the starting heats. The 18-seed 6-lane double elimination format used has four steps:

• All 18 crews race in three heats of six boats each. The top two boats from each heat qualify directly for the semifinal, skipping the repechage races. The bottom four boats race in the repechages.
• The top three boats from each repechage qualify for the semifinal. The bottom three boats race in the C Final.
• The top three boats from each semifinal qualify for the Grand Final, the bottom three boats from each semifinal qualify for the Petite Final.
• All crews race in either the C Final, Petite Final, or Grand Final.

Since there are only 16 crews racing in the girls event, that bracket is slightly different, with the top three crews from the heats getting a bye on the reps and a single 7-boat repechage for the remaining crews, the top three of which get the last spots in the semis.
Full brackets for the Boys and Girls events are below:

The girls eight, rowing in the M. Catherine Gilmartin with (from bow to stroke) Lyn Ann Forrester ’08, Allison Courtin ’08, Katrina Regan ’08, Erin Metcalf ’09, Katherine Dyke ’08, Lizzy McDermott ’08, Rory Erickson-Kulas ’08, Cathy McDermott ’08, and Alyssa Murray ’08, rowed their heat Friday at 10:55 AM.  In the top-two to qualify heat, the boat cruised to a 3.64 second win over second-place Green Lake.  Courtin said “We were conservative going into the heat, preparing for hard competition since we don’t know anything about these crews.  We had a pretty solid row all the way down, didn’t sprint, Green Lake fell back early and trailed us most of the way.”  Looking ahead to the semifinal on Saturday at 3:47 PM, the girls are “cautiously optimistic,” in earning a top-3 finish to qualify for Sunday’s grand finals.

The boys eight, rowing in the Titus with (from bow to stroke) Tim Moore ’08, Vaughan Coder ’08, Mario Barosevcic ’08, Ryan Jones ’09, Chris Jones ’08, Andrew Safir ’08, Ian Winthrop ’08, Luke Thoms ’08, and Alex Manfull ’09, raced their heat Friday at 11:16 AM.  Despite having the third fastest time in any of the heats and being 9.41 seconds ahead of the fourth best time, top two finishers St. Joseph’s Prep and Winter Park were both in Exeter’s heat, and forced the eight into the repechages by 0.79 seconds.  The reps were originally scheduled to occur Friday afternoon, though severe thunderstorms forced a postponement of the reps until Saturday morning at 9:38 AM.  In this race, the boys took first by 3.69 seconds.  The Titus will row in the semifinals Saturday afternoon at 4:08 PM, needing a top-3 finish to qualify for the grand finals.

Good luck to both crews!  Follow along with race results as they become available at the live results page.

Update: (6/14-11:03 AM) News from the repechages has been added, and the brackets have been updated in preparation for this afternoon’s semifinal races.