Ithaca College has become the first school to repeat as NCAA Division III women's crew champions. The Bombers won their second straight title Friday and Saturday at the NCAA Rowing Championships at Lake Natoma, California.

Ithaca scored 10 points -- tied with Smith for the lowest score at the championships -- but the Bombers won the NCAA title by virtue of a higher finish in Saturday's grand final.

The varsity eight boat placed second in Saturday's grand final; the second varsity eight boat had placed third in the petite final. Both boats had raced in a heat Friday morning; the varsity eight won its heat to qualify automatically for Saturday's grand final. The second varsity eight placed fourth in its seven-boat heat, then placed sixth in Friday evening's repachage to earn a spot in the petite final. In Saturday's grand final, Ithaca placed second; the Bombers overtook Smith's varsity eight boat for second place during the race's second 500 meters. Trinity (Conn.) won the gold medal with a first-place finish.

The Bombers were making their seventh appearance in the NCAA Rowing Championships, which were first contested in 1997. That year Ithaca's entry -- a women's four -- placed tenth of 16 teams. A year later Ithaca qualified a varsity eight for the national championship. In 2001 the Bombers competed at the NCAA championships for the third time. In 2002 Ithaca competed in the NCAA's first Division III Rowing Championship (the previous national championship events had included schools from all three divisions) and the Bombers tied for third. The Bombers finished third again the following season before winning last spring's national title. Ithaca is the only program to compete in all four NCAA Division III championship events.

"At the beginning of the year, I wasn't sure we would be back in this position," said Ithaca coach Becky Robinson. "As things unfolded, I definitely recognized that Trinity's varsity eight was very strong and clearly ahead of the rest of the crews. We started talking about how else we could win the championship as a team and what we needed to do at the varsity and second varsity eight levels. Our second varsity eight rowed the best race they have ever rowed today. If our varsity eight didn't row its best race, it was definitely close to the best race of the season. That was a secondary goal this year, to get better every single time we performed this season, and they did that today."

Robinson, a 1988 Ithaca graduate and a member of the 1991 U.S. National Rowing Team, becomes the third Ithaca coach -- joining wrestling coach John Murray (1989 and 1990) and women's soccer coach Pat Farmer (1990 and 1991) -- as the only Bomber coaches to win consecutive national titles.

Ithaca's varsity eight boat was made up of senior coxswain Bailey Frye (Bishop Hoban/Plains, Pa.), junior eighth seat Emma Flemer (home-schooled/Weaverville, N.C.), senior seventh seat Robin McCann (Allison Park/Allison Park, Pa.), junior sixth seat Stacey Bowen (Marple Newtown/Broomall, Pa.), senior fifth seat Jessica Selock (General Douglas MacArthur/Levittown), senior fourth seat Meghan Musnicki (Canandaigua Academy/Naples), junior third seat Stephanie Knabe (Jackson/Jackson, Minn.), senior second seat Jacy McFall (Nyack/New Windsor) and junior bow Sarah Kuebler (Fairview/Fairview, Pa.).

Musnicki, one of five Bombers who rowed in the varsity eight boat each of the past two years (including the 2004 boat that earned a gold medal by winning the grand final), said, "This is unbelievable; I can't even describe what it feels like. To be national champions two years in a row: I couldn't have imagined doing this with another group. It was a great race, and Trinity (the varsity eight champions) is a great crew. We rowed our hardest and our best, and we're more than pleased with the outcome."

"Last year when we finished (first in the varsity eight competition), we knew we had won the championship. This year, we didn't know and we had to look to the shore at our second varsity eight, which was screaming with joy," explained Selock, another returning rower from last year's varsity eight. "To pull out a team championship feels awesome."

Ithaca's second varsity eight boat was made up of junior coxswain Melanie Pessin (West [Iowa]/ Stony Brook), junior eighth seat Colleen Good (North Penn/Lansdale, Pa.), sophomore seventh seat Jane Semiz (Warwick Valley/Warwick), junior sixth seat Heather Luke (Charles W. Baker/Baldwinsville), junior fifth seat Julianne Purfield (Ridgefield/Fairfield, Conn.), sophomore fourth seat Stephanie Edley (G. Ray Bodley/Fulton), senior third seat Danielle Costa (Bishop Eustace/Mount Laurel, N.J.), junior second seat Marissa Spitz (Niles Township West/Skokie, Ill.) and junior bow Kaitlin Veninsky (Marathon/Richford).

The national championship is the 15th won by Ithaca College and the third in four years (the Bombers won the 2002 NCAA softball championship). Ithaca has also won NCAA titles in football (three), wrestling (three), baseball (two), women's soccer (two) and field hockey (one); the 1998 gymnastics team won the National Collegiate Gymnastics Association championship.

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