After two long and productive days on the water, the Coast Guard Academy sailing team has qualified for the Sperry Women's National Championship final at Newport, R.I.

The Bears placed third in the Eastern semifinals to advance.

"Everything is going well so far, "coach Brian Swingly said on Tuesday. "We're excited.

The top nine teams from the Eastern and Western semifinals moved on. The Bears had 128 points, trailing only College of Charleston (108) and Dartmouth (98). Georgetown (132) and Rhode Island (138) rounded out the top five.

Coast Guard ranked first after Monday's first semifinal. Once the Bears locked up a berth in the finals about halfway through Tuesday's competition, Swingly started to prepare his team for the grueling road ahead.

"Our mentality pretty much was to get everyone as much rest as possible because it was really windy today and it is going to be windy the next couple of days as well," Swingly said. "It takes much more effort. We want to be fresh.

"It was a pretty mellow day for us. We weren't concerned about the score."

Eighteen teams qualified for the two-day final, which runs Wednesday and Thursday. Yale (99), Boston College (100) and Stanford (114) were the top three teams in the Western division.

All semifinal scores are erased.

The conditions in Newport suit the Bears just fine. They're in their comfort zone.

"We're feeling really good," Swingly said. "We're pretty confident that we did our speed work and boat handling work prior to the event.

"I'm pretty confident the last two days we studied the race course and figured things out better than any other team."

According to Swingly, the Bears are focused on one goal today — sail each race as well as they can.

There will be 18 races in today's regatta and 18 more on Thursday.

— Day staff reports