Jenna Armstrong earns NCAA women's rowing championship with Bates College

2015 Jun 3

Jenna Armstrong, a senior at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, recently helped the school win its first ever NCAA team championship as a member of the women's rowing team. Bates topped defending champion Trinity College on May 30 to capture the national title by one point.

Bates scored 12 points for its victory in the women's second varsity eights grand final, and 27 more for placing second to Trinity in the women's varsity eights grand final, for a total of 39, one point ahead of Trinity.

"I'm just very happy for the women, for them knowing they have done all the work necessary to achieve this success," says head coach Peter Steenstra. "You can see where this is going in the future. Some of these women have 2-3 more years to look forward to, with the desire to repeat this as many times as they can. They'll never lose sight of fact of how difficult it was to get there, and that they have to continue to work just as hard. The mountain isn't going to get any shorter."

Armstrong, daughter of William and Nancy Armstrong of Florham Park, N.J., is a 2011 graduate of Hanover Park High School in East Hanover, N.J. She majors in mathematics and biological chemistry at Bates.

The NCAA title arrives in Bates' ninth ever and ninth consecutive national regatta appearance. Bates was the national runner-up to Williams College for five straight years, between 2009 and 2013. This is the second consecutive year the Bobcats have reached NCAAs as the top-ranked team in Division III and as champions of the New England Small College Athletic Association.