The Stanford women’s lightweight varsity eight turned in its fastest time of the season in the Grand Final of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championships in Camden, N.J. last Saturday. Unfortunately, it was only good enough for fifth.

The Cardinal finished in just 6:44.088, but Bucknell was untouchable, crossing the finish in a course-record 6:36.096 to become just the fifth different school to ever win the event.

“The team was a lot faster than we were going [earlier in the year],” Stanford head coach Al Acosta said. “Everybody on the team, including myself, was convinced that this was our best performance of the year.”

The Bison handily downed second-place Princeton (6:39.543) and third-place Wisconsin (6:40.5), the three-time defending champion. Radcliffe (6:43.405) took fourth, followed by the Cardinal and Georgetown (6:47.503).

The race was exciting throughout, with Stanford holding third shortly off the starting line. The women fell back to fifth after several hundred meters — only to battle back into third at the halfway mark, evening out with Radcliffe and Wisconsin. As the race neared its end, the Badgers surged toward leaders Bucknell and Princeton, leaving Stanford to battle Radcliffe for fourth.

“We fought pretty hard with Radcliffe at the end,” Acosta said. “They got us by maybe 10 feet. This was the most competitive national championship we’ve ever had.”

But there was tight competition even before the Grand Final. On the first day of racing, Stanford, Bucknell and Princeton battled for two guaranteed bids to the Grand Final.

The Cardinal separated itself by over 20 seconds from fourth-place Long Beach, but Bucknell and Princeton finished one-two — 6:40.66 and 6:40.78, respectively — several seconds ahead of Stanford’s 6:45.069.

This meant the Cardinal had to compete with Central Florida, Ohio State and Loyola Marymount in the repechage for a bid to the Grand Final. Stanford responded to the challenge and easily took its repechage in 6:50.647, 7.5 seconds ahead of second-place Loyola Marymount.

Comprising the Cardinal lightweight eight were seniors Meredith Coleman and Jennie Morawetz; juniors Kate Hayes and Olivia Prevost (bow); sophomores Kathy Altman and Jessica Weigel (coxswain); and freshmen Erin Conlon, Alex Liptsey-Rahe and Anne Stake.

The IRA National Championships brought Stanford’s competitive season to a close, but the women have a trip across the pond later this month to participate in the Henley Women’s Regatta on London’s River Thames. Both the women’s eight and four will compete.