2025 SRAA National Championship – Girl’s Varsity Eight Preview

This weekend, America’s top scholastic crews will race at the 2025 SRAA Scholastic National Championship Regatta. This year’s race will be hosted on the Cooper River in New Jersey. Crews racing will have qualified from one of eight regional championship regattas, or will have been granted an entry based off petitions. 2025 will see 21 entrants battle it out in the girl’s senior eight category.

Winter Park Crew

Located near Orlando, Florida, Winter Park Crew has established itself as a top scholastic programme in the United States. Under the leadership of Head Coach Mike Vertullo, Winter Park has won the SRAA Varsity eight category for three consecutive years now. On top of domestic success, 2022 saw Winter Park become the first American crew to make the final in The Prince Philip Challenge Trophy at Henley. That year’s campaign saw the programme’s varsity beat Headington School, the previous year’s winners, on Day 3. Winter Park attended Henley Royal Regatta again in 2023 and 2024, as the programme looks to make this trip more regular. In terms of recent results, the women’s varsity eight won at the USRowing Southeast Regionals earlier this month. Given this impressive record, Winter Park will enter the SRAAs looking to extend their legacy and claim another victory.

Montclair High School

Montclair is one of the top-performing scholastic programmes based in New Jersey. To qualify for the SRAAs, the Montclair varsity eight won the Garden State Scholastic Championships by over 20 seconds on the rest of the field. Last year, Montclair placed fourth in this event. In 2023, they won the Petite Final, coming seventh overall. Recent form includes putting up the fastest time trial result this past weekend at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta. Additionally, Montclair won the women’s youth eight category at the 2025 USRowing Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships, opening a staggering seven-second margin ahead of second. Montclair is a contender to look out for, as they will look to topple Winter Park at this year’s edition of the SRAAs.

Mount Saint Joseph Academy

From Pennsylvania, Mount Saint Joseph Academy is a scholastic programme that has gained recognition for consistent performance through the years. At the 2024 SRAAs, the Mount claimed the bronze medal. Earlier this May, the women’s eight placed third at Mid-Atlantic Regionals, finishing eight seconds behind Montclair over 2000 meters. This past weekend at Stotesbury, they closed in to three seconds off Montclair and claimed second in a 1500-meter time trial. The Mount have been gaining speed, and the programme will on show at the SRAAs this year.

New Trier High School Rowing

Winnetka, Illinois is a village at the northwestern end of Lake Michigan, home to New Trier High School Rowing. New Trier is a programme that has performed well at SRAAs. In 2022, they placed sixth. In 2023 and 2024, they placed silver. Last year at SRAAs, New Trier was only 0.124 seconds off the gold. This season’s notable results include winning the Midwest Scholastic Championship with an eight-second margin over the field. The Midwest result from a few weeks back will give the programme confidence to look for gold at SRAAs this year.

Predictions

Winter Park will continue their hot streak at the SRAA Scholastic National Championships. Montclair will claim second based on quick results at Stotesbury and Mid-Atlantic Regionals. New Trier and Mount Saint Joseph Academy will battle it out for a tight third and fourth. In that contest, I see New Trier claiming the bronze over the Mount, continuing to claw tight to the winners of this event.