MIDDLETOWN, Conn. – Wesleyan men's crew head coach
Phil Carney is the NESCAC Coach of the Year, as announced by the league office on Thursday afternoon. In addition, six Cardinals earned All-NESCAC honors matching a team record for the highest number of All-NESCAC selections in a single-season.
Coach Carney earns NESCAC Coach of the Year honors for the third time in his career and second time in the last three seasons. Two years removed from winning the team's first-ever National Championship, Carney's group is back to winning ways as the Varsity 8 has lost just once this season and is coming off a NESCAC Championship winning performance and National Invitational Rowing Championship first place result on Sunday. Wesleyan's top boat has taken first place in five-of-six regatta, including the Class of 2003 Cup, Little Three Championship, New England Championship, NESCAC Championship, and National Invitational title. Both the NESCAC and NIRC titles are trophies the team has only won once prior to this season, back in the undefeated 2024 campaign. Ranked No. 1 in the IRCA D3 Varsity 8 poll, the Cardinals look to get back to the podium at the 2026 IRA National Championship on May 28-30 out in California.
All six of Wesleyan's All-NESCAC selections are members of the V8 boat, which was lost just once all season. Making the All-NESCAC First Team is coxswain
Asher Israel '26,
Eli Smirin '26,
Nelson Bellows '26 and
Gus Shuman '27. Making the All-NESCAC Second Team is two additional members of the V8 in
Pierce Buckner-Wolfson '26 and
Sam Penn '28.
Bellows and Israel become the fourth and fifth Cardinals in team history to earn multiple All-NESCAC First Team selections over the course of their career. Israel joins Colin Mattox '16 and Michael Queenan '17 as the only Cardinals in team history to graduate with three career All-NESCAC honors. Smirin is a two-time All-NESCAC honoree, making the First Team for the first time. Buckner-Wolfson is another two-time All-NESCAC selection while Shuman and Penn are first-time All-NESCAC honorees.
The spring season opened in Worcester at the Class of 2003 title where the Cardinals finished in first for the fourth straight year and fifth time in six seasons, defeating a pair of Top 10 ranked boats in the process.
Following the success in Worcester, Wesleyan backed that up with a pair of wins over Tufts and Bates on the Malden River before traveling to Onota Lake where the Cardinals toppled Top 5 ranked Williams to claim their second Little Three title in three seasons and 20
th overall in team history.
At the New England Championships, Wesleyan's V8 finished as the runner-up to Trinity, marking the third straight year the Cardinals' top boat finished as either runner-up or in first place at New England's. Then, most-recently at the NIRC, Wesleyan was crowned NESCAC Champion as the Cardinals beat Trinity by just over one second while Williams was a distant third with a time nearly seven seconds behind Wesleyan.
By way of their win at the NIRC, the Cardinals earned an automatic bid into the 2026 IRA D3 National Championship which will be held out in California on Lake Natoma.
