Fresh off their strong Pacific-10 Conference Championship showing twelve days ago, the No. 7 Stanford women’s crew team now heads east to compete at the NCAA Championships in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Although the Cardinal failed to qualify for the team championships, its second place finish in the varsity eight (falling behind top-ranked Southern California by just 3.5 seconds) was enough to secure an at-large bid to the NCAAs.

The team championships consist of a series of races between the first varsity eight, the second varsity eight and the varsity four squads of the 12 qualifying schools. Stanford and the other three at-large selections, No. 14 Central Florida, No. 15 Dartmouth and No. 13 UCLA, join the team qualifiers for the varsity eight heats, creating a field of 16 for that event.

The winner of the varsity eight races will take home the NCAA title for the event, but the 12 team championship qualifiers will continue racing with the second varsity eights and the varsity fours. The team with the most total points at the end of all the races will be awarded the NCAA team racing title.

The 12 qualifying squads are No. 1 USC, No. 2 Yale, No. 3 Virginia, No. 4 Brown, No. 5 Ohio State, No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 8 UC-Berkeley, No. 9 Princeton, No. 10 Tennessee, No. 11 Minnesota, No. 12 Harvard and No. 19 Washington.

Although the field is a mix of the nation’s best, Stanford will be sharing the water with some familiar foes, as Pac-10 teams make up nearly a third of the field. The Cardinal women have been strong competitors with UCLA and Washington all year and finally showed up the Golden Bears at the Pac-10 Championships, defeating their rival for the first time this season in a tight race for second.

The Cal and Washington programs also have NCAA history, with each having won two of the ten championships to date, and Washington having qualified every year thus far. The Bears are also the defending national champions.

But the most difficult challenge for Stanford may come from USC. Although just their second trip to the NCAA team championships, the Trojans are the clear-cut favorites, heading into the season’s final race undefeated and ranked tops in the nation.

Stanford knows firsthand just how dominant USC can be, but has made progress against its southern rival. The 3.5 second margin at the Pac-10 Championships was the year’s closest finish yet for the Trojans.

The other two-thirds of the field are not to be taken lightly, though.

Brown and Princeton have never failed to qualify for the team championships. Brown has managed to win four, while Harvard took home the national title in 2003. In fact, every team in the field has NCAA experience, except for Minnesota. But even the Golden Gophers are a threat, as their first varsity eight has finished worse than second just once this season.

Still, the Cardinal can take confidence in that its squad seems to be peaking at just the right time.