Butcher Finish Ninth In National Championship

Lenox Bucher of Penn Sailing Club managed to finish in ninth in national championship Laser Performance, women’s singlehanded.

It is the best ever finish of Quakers at any national competition. And the entire tournament was very competitive.

When Butcher qualified for this tournament, her path was not easy; there were tough competitors present in the championship and her start in completion was not impressive too. When Bucher’s starting performances went poorly, she was on her downside, but then she recollected her confidence and entered in championship with more concentration.

It is also a fact that in collegiate sailing, the participant who starts good had high chances of winning. Instead, here consistence performance is the key for winning the championship and Butcher was aware of this fact.

On the first day of the championship where five rounds took place, Butcher started very well. She has tendency of starting strong but get face at the end of the race. This brought her ranking to double digit from fourth. But, on the second day of championship Bucher started with New Zealand the day was good for her. In five rounds of the race, she managed to get into top ten positions. She finished in ninth and this has been the best ever score of any Quaker. No Quaker has reached top ten ranking of any intercollegiate sailing association national championship.

Butcher is happy with her performance and said all our team members did well in competition. Upon asking about future plans and any wish list she said “Number one thing that we want to improve our game is a full time coach and funding for the game. We are getting things, but we know if there will be good funding and we will get a full time coach then we would be able to improve more”.

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