With a seventh-place finish in the NCAA championships this weekend, the UW women’s crew season has come to an end.

Maintaining the strong tradition of the UW rowing program, the women reached their 13th-consecutive NCAA championship appearance and once again stood toe to toe with the nation’s best.

Despite this, expectations at the beginning of the year were higher, and head coach Bob Ernst isn’t exactly pleased with where the program is right now.

“I think these kids have been giving a great effort to get Washington rowing back on the map,” Ernst said. “And sometimes you just have to say, ‘That’s good enough for me right now.’ It’s not where I want us to be, and it’s not where they (the team) want to be. We’re going to make systematic progress, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort.”

Ranked third in the preseason polls, the Huskies gradually dropped to 13th by the end of the regular season.

While always competitive, the first varsity boat was unable to finish first in the most important races, including the San Diego Crew Classic and the Pac-10 championships. They did, however, redeem themselves against Washington State, as the women swept the Cougars in every race.

Featuring mostly freshman by the end of the season, the varsity four boat struggled to reach the bar that last year’s squad set when it finished first at the NCAA championships. Starting off the season strong, the four continued its solid racing by defeating Cal in late April. Three weeks later, the tide had turned, as California finished nearly nine seconds ahead of the Huskies’ varsity four in the Pac-10 championships.

Hanne Trafnik, six-seat on the first varsity boat, was disappointed with how the season turned out.

“We wanted to win the NCAAs — at least as a team,” she said. “And we pretty much failed hard. Looking back at what we achieved and realizing that we just couldn’t do it: We just weren’t good enough, I think.”

The season wasn’t without its good memories, though.

In a series of exciting races, the Windermere Cup was a success for the UW women and the 2,000 fans in attendance. The UW won every event it raced in, including the final race against Miami and the under-23 national team from Brazil.

The end of this season means the departure of five of the Huskies’ most valuable rowers: seniors Kim Kennedy, Lia Prins, Helen Wall, Samantha Smith and Rachel Powers, each of whom has won a medal at the NCAAs in her career at the UW.

With just four seniors on the two varsity eight boats combined, the Huskies have a lot to look forward to next year. More than one-third of the UW women at the NCAAs were freshmen, and the Dawgs also return All Pac-10 rower Adrienne Martelli.

That alone doesn’t guarantee anything, though, and Ernst knows it.

“The only things that are going to make us better next year is a lot of hard work and some more good recruits,” he said. “We need to work hard between now and 362 days from now.”

Note: An error in the list of graduating seniors has been corrected.

Reach reporter Scott Eisen at sports@dailyuw.com.