Familiar names but fresh faces was the story of the podium as the Crew Classic ran its big collegiate and junior finals on Sunday. Defending champs ruled the day for the most part--many with new or even completely different lineups this year--so we spotted heaps of folks come through the Trophy Tent to pick up hardware that already had their teams engraved on it from last year.

Case in point: the Cal Men won the Cal Cup again with their Frosh Eight, but of course that crew is an all new outfit, as freshmen eights are, or were.

The Cal Freshmen Eight with the Cal Cup

In the same vein of familiar but fresh, the Los Gatos Youth Men's quad was 75% new, with just Nolan Hamm back as an actual "defender" in that race, and even the Texas women's eight grabbing its fourth Jessop-Whittier Cup in a row had six rowers brand-new to the Longhorn 1V, to include two frosh of their own.

(Fun fact for folks scouring line-ups: bow man of that winning Cal 1F, Leo Shetler, stroked the Los Gatos quad to the win last year that Hamm and the new guys defended.)

We counted 47 medal finals during the 7:15-3:30 regatta day, and caught up with a few of the winners you can read about below. By the end of Sunday, the 52nd Crew Classic sure felt like the biggest one yet, especially with the last afternoon's schedule stretched a bit to accommodate the four Master's Dash events added this year, which folks had been asking for at the formerly 2ks-only Crew Classic.

The #1 Longhorns Take Care of Business

Texas won the marquee race for the Jessop-Whittier Cup again, topping an 8 boat field that included six ranked D1 teams, including a very experienced Washington eight also making its 2025 debut.

The Texas 1V keeping the Longhorn's SDCC streak rolling

The showdown brewing all weekend between #1 Texas and #5 Washington--if you can call a race that when it is "just" a season opener--was worth the buzz it created.

Texas moved through UW's early lead in the second 1000 to establish an edge that Washington just missed clawing back. From outside the boat, it looked like Texas had the race calmly in hand once they got ahead, but stroke seat Sue Holderness told row2k that it felt "stroke for stroke" the whole way. Coming down the beach, the race did tighten up, but Texas stayed in front, by .8 seconds.

Texas arrived in San Diego as the preseason (and current) #1 team in the rankings, with both their 2024 NCAA title and a three year winning streak on Mission Bay in the Jessop-Whittier Cup going for them. That streak runs back to when the regatta restarted after its COVID layoff in 2020 and 2021.

But, as Texas coach Dave O'Neill was quick to point out, "You never really know what kind of team you have until you line up and you're put under pressure.

"I was really impressed with our first eight and second eight," he added. "Washington was right there and it was be a battle to the end but they stepped up, fought hard, and got their bow ball ahead."

"It was fun to be tested and see how we respond," said Holderness, one of the new faces in the Texas 1V we mentioned above.

"We've been working really hard to become a team and knowing that, I had full trust that everyone was going to go hard and do it together. A lot of great things can happen when you do it as a team and so it's really exciting."

"During the race, it definitely felt like we were going back-and-forth," Holderness said. "We'd try to take a move and go a little bit harder and then they would do the same.

Holderness and Texas coxswain Amy Werner

"Dave tells us it's ok if it's hard. The only guarantee is that it's going to be hard, so it's normal in a race to have those moments of doubt, and when you do, he says get back to work. We knew what our race plan was and we knew we were going to do it together, so when those doubts came back into any of our heads, we just thought get back to work, next stroke.

"I definitely had to take this race stroke by stroke," she added, "and do the best I could on the stroke I was on."

Texas boated a relatively new lineup, according to O'Neill: "In our first eight, only two kids had raced at that level. Everyone else had to step up. First time racing in a first eight and to be challenged like that, to step up and do so well was really good."

The crew was up against a much more seasoned Washington boat: while both are deep programs with experienced recruits to draw on, Washington's crew has 19 seasons of 1V racing amongst themselves, with two 5th years, three seniors, and one athlete--Italy's Aisha Rocek--back from a year off for the Paris Olympics.

"That whole COVID situation has very much subsided for us," said O'Neill, whose 2024 squad had a number of 5th year rowers who then moved on after the NCAA title. "We've got freshman in every boat and people stepping into new roles.

"We've had to accelerate some of the athletic maturity for some kids and they've stepped up," he added. "The two freshmen in our first eight, Ilva Boone and Imy Grey, have been terrific, and they have a good future ahead of them."

The 'Cats' Own the Quads

Good weekend all around for the Los Gatos scullers, who notched a repeat in the Youth Men's Quad and picked up a win their Youth Women's Quad that snapped a string of victories by Redwood Scullers that ran back to 2019. The whole squad delivered, winning both the A and B quads for the men and women, plus a fifth gold in the U16 Women's 4x+. The team even nabbed three second places and got some results down the list that impressed the coaches.

"I was happy to see the top two quads execute the opportunity that they earned," said men's coach Channing Walker, whose top stroke--Chad Knauss--is just a sophomore. "Hopefully that experience will pay off down the line at our regionals.

Elation for the Los Gatos Youth Men's Quad

"Beyond those guys, our JV8 had a pretty gutsy performance dealing with some illness to hold onto 5th and our 3V guys had a pretty emphatic win in the B-Final of the JV4x. The group needs to get fitter in the run up to SW Regionals but the effort was really good yesterday."

"Our age group coaches, TJ LaScola and Ian Fitzcharles, are doing an amazing job getting the younger athletes ready to race. The U16 and U17 8s getting 2nd today behind Marin was a good step for the program as we move towards Regionals."

The women's side entered eight crews across the four junior sculling events, said Los Gatos head coach Jaime Valez.

Full squad effort from the Los Gatos women

"The women's coaching staff was very happy with how all of our crews performed this weekend, not just the boats that won," he said. "There has been a lot of competition within the squad in the lead up to SDCC as we worked to set lineups.

"We wanted to use each row as an opportunity to execute our race plans and look for ways to improve for the next race. The competition at the top is fierce and our crews showed a lot of poise in the base of the races," Valez added. "I am grateful for all the hard work of the women and the coaches: Ava Klash, Paige Knudson, and Steve Hope. We will need to continue to build fitness and speed in our preparation for the Southwest Championships."

One Last Trip to the Beer Tent? Check.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Endeavor Racing Alliance | Elite Masters Rowing (@endeavorracingalliance)

Nautico Trae el Fuego

Club Nautico de San Juan--the collection of (mostly) Brown alums that Jeb Bresser gathers out of his now probably digital rolodex each year for lots of 2k fun in the sun--had crews racing, and winning, masters races all weekend, but they really brought the heat on Sunday in the open events.

We covered the antics, er, results of the older group in our semi-bilingual Friday report, but the group of younger alums in the "club" had a fine time of it in the two open A Finals they raced on Sunday. First they won the top trophy of the regatta, the Copley Cup, for a second year in the absence of the top college varsities on the men's side. Then, they doubled back for the Open Eight, and the chance to race the fastest college eight at this year's regatta: those Cal Freshmen who won the Cal Cup earlier in the day over the Gonzaga varsity.

Spoiler alert: it went well for Will Legenzowski and the Nautico guys

This year's Cal Frosh were hoping to pull off the same Cal Cup-Open Eight double that last year's freshmen class of Bears made happen, but Nautico packed in a few ringers, to include Olympic bronze medallist Henry Hollingsworth. The Open Eight lineup, stroked by National Team sculler Will Leganzowski, featured Jacob Hudgins, Nathan Phelps, Josh Diggons, and Olympic spare Gus Rodriguez--all of whom raced at the Winter Speed Order last week along with Hollingsworth.

As we noted in our report yesterday, this eight of not-quite-masters-yet took Saturday's prelim race pretty easy and maybe let the young [Cal Bear] cubs win that round, but it was all gas in the final. The older guys nipped the frosh in the final in a heater, winning by four-tenths of a second in the fastest race of the day.

"The competition was fierce," Leganzowski said, "but not as fierce as the mean streets of San Juan."

Leganzowski and a few of the other Nautico guys "from" those mean streets picked up multiple wins on the weekend, which made for a lot of bling, both on the Insta, and in the Trophy Tent as you can see above.

We are pretty sure that winning the showdown with the Cal frosh was probably an extra bit of fun for the guys in the Nautico crew who rowed at Cal, like James Alcorn, as well as Rodriguez and Phelps, who both did a grad degree with the Bears during their last year of eligibility after graduating from Brown and Princeton.

At least, it sure looked like Rodriguez was having fun with it:

Youth Eights Put it on Repeat

Just guessing here, but it sure seems like the Marin Men and Newport Aquatic Center Women have "Swing by the Trophy Tent/Retrieve Hardware" on their official itinerary these days. Their varsity crews marched through the regatta to win again...and for good measure, they took gold home with their younger athletes in the U16 and U17 events they entered, too, so good signs from each program about the chances to keep things rolling in the coming years.

Of course, repeating is never a given, particularly when you have to brave the Crew Classic's eight lane finals and see off seven other crews to do it, but Marin and Newport pulled it off with aplomb.

Weston Cole, the head coach at Newport Aquatic Center, was happy with the results here in San Diego, even as he looks down the track at Regionals and beyond for his crews.

"The weekend showed the depth of competitiveness within our program and definitely gives us momentum going into the home stretch of the season, Cole said. "We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but I think this group is eager to get to it."

Newport Aquatic Center Youth Women's Eight

NAC 5 seat Lily Gonzalez, who won a Crew Classic gold in the B eight last year and collected another on Sunday, told row2k that her eight is a tight-knit group.

"The entire boat has had not only the attitude and determination to win, but also understands the aspects of interboat dynamics that contribute to overall speed," she said. "In other words, we are all very close and everyone in the boat feels valued. Friendship is Magic."

In the Youth Men's race, Marin cruised to victory, nearly doubling the margin from their win a year ago over Oakland Strokes. They even got a "smoking fast" comment from the race announcers in the closing strokes. Norcal won the much tighter race for second, touching out the Newport Aquatic Center's men's crew.

"Given that it’s San Diego, the conditions aren’t going to be perfect but I thought that as a crew we handled the rougher water pretty well at the start," said Marin senior Ryan Jorgensen, the captain and stroke of the 1V. "Once we hit the beach towards the end of the race the rate came up really nicely and, as a crew, we were really able to move together and continue to push away from the field."

Marin's Youth Men's Eight with the San Diego Rowing Club Cup

Geordie MacLeod, the head coach of Marin's youth boys, was pleased with the team's effort and speed across the board.

"The weekend was a great way to start our Spring season for the whole group," he said, "with winning results for the U16 and U17 crews coached by Tim Humphrey as well as the 1V, 2V and 3V. Amanda Cashman’s 3V raced strongly to make it a 2nd consecutive 1-2 finish in the 2V event, which shows the depth of hard work through the team.

"We have a lot of experience in the 1V and I think they used that well in the final, not over extending themselves in the chop and swells in the first part of the race, before being able to push the throttle more in the closing 750m to build the margin."

Running It Backwards...And Over Thataway

In Friday's report, we linked up this vintage video of the 1974 Crew Classic, and asked the question, "wait a second, are the crews racing in the opposite direction?"

Well, we got our answer by email over the weekend from Martha Shumaker, the long time executive director of the regatta:

"The early Crew Classic regattas were held just west in Sail Bay. Start line at the north end with boat holders standing in the water just off the shore near the Catamaran Hotel. Finish line between the Bahia Hotel and then Vacation Village, now Paradise Point. No lane lines but San Diego Gas and Electric engineered an overhead cable across the bay and hung numbered targets. The event outgrew the shore real estate and moved east."

So there you have it: not racing the opposite way at all--just using a whole different 2k leg of the bay.

See You Next Year

So, after three days, 21 galleries with 3600 photos, and 3 reports, there's really only thing left to say from Mission Bay:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by San Diego Crew Classic® (@crewclassic)