We knew the women's rankings weren't safe from change after even the first race of the regatta, but boy did things change. Considering only the varsity eights on the women's side of things, both #8 UCLA and #14 WSU lost all their races while #13 Virginia and #16 Notre Dame won all their races. Virginia seems to have found a lineup that might propel them back to the upper-echelon status of their former #2 glory ahead of UCLA, Washington, and Washington State. Notre Dame has bested #5 Cal, #7 Stanford, and #8 UCLA and will definitely see newfound respect for its speed.
Those are the clear winners and clear... well, crews who need to improve. In between, the picture gets pretty muddled, as we have a ring of death between four crews trumping each other (and this is just in the varsity eights), creating havoc with the idea of simple better-than-worse-than rankings. Let's not even get into mitigating conditions (thanks to Saturday afternoon's wind). The 2-1 crews are Tennessee, UCF, and Washington, and the 1-2 crews are Cal, Louisville, and Stanford. UW comes out on top of this middle group, while Cal, Tennessee, Stanford, and Louisville each have one victory over the other. UCF belongs somewhere here, as Washington beat them too, but UCF did not race either of those four other crews.
Let's not take away from the other boat classes though. Cal's 2V and V4 swept their races, a feat only equaled by Virginia. It was encouraging that no school suffered a complete sweep in the six races comprising the 2V and V4 events, and this isn't even getting to the novice eights results, which won't be included in the NCAA selection criteria, I think. Looking at those novice results, one might expect continued growth of Virginia, Notre Dame, and Central Florida in women's rowing, as they defeated Cal, UCLA, and WSU respectively. In a west-coast-only novice match up, the Washington women beat the Sacramento State women.
UCLA and WSU do not have much time to reestablish their speed, as SIRA's and the Pac-10s are coming up soon. Virginia and Notre Dame must establish their new lineups out east to move up in the ranking polls, which will undoubtedly play into the NCAA selectors' minds. Given the clear different in this weekend's performance versus past weeks' results, the Cavaliers and Fighting Irish have got to be pleased that they have time to prove their speed against more opponents after coming away with 3-0 varsity records here. UCF, Cal, Tennessee, Washington, Stanford, and Louisville will be likewise looking to reestablish their speed for the season. Perhaps they should hope for some wild and windy weather?just for practice, just in case. It's an outdoor sport.
In the women's lightweight eight events, Princeton showed their class by beating Stanford to the line in a straightforward victory: they got out fast, extended their lead in the second 500m, and held that lead through the second thousand, sitting on a comfortable lead in that second half of the race and giving up only a second and a half to win by close to three seconds. Still, Stanford managed to go a half second faster in the third 500m in a moderate headwind, and there's probably more speed to come. For now, the #1 Tigers are the top boat. UCF and Loyola went down according to seed, as the top ten Golden Knights beat Loyola. The Lions come away with an 0-3 record against three nationally top-ten lightweight boats, which is nothing to hang their heads about, and they will have some time to chase that speed as their season rounds itself out in the next month or two.
By the way, Princeton's lightweight 2V, who made the trip out west, fell to Cal's 3V yesterday in that blistering Saturday headwind. The Princeton lightweight 2V also raced today against the Cal lightweight eight and a composite Arizona State boat comprised of both lightweight and openweight rowers (several of their openweight rowers qualify as lightweight). Princeton won the race easily in the three-boat event: Cal started in "lane zero", and between lanes zero and one, the trailing boat was to yield at the bridge to the faster crew. Cal got the worse of that deal and finished third behind Arizona State and Princeton. It was a good race, and both Cal and ASU be credited for hanging in this race. Cal's lightweight squad has been hit hard by the injury bug, and their loss to Princeton here and to Stanford in the women's lightweight fours event should serve to give the healthy rowers a goal to train towards. This was the first time that Arizona State rowed this composite lineup, so to be competitive with Cal was not a bad showing at all. Due to the unexpected nature of this race (the jamcotimes.com staff were not informed of the details), no splits data were available. The final race results were: Princeton in 7:19.5, ASU in 7:34.5, and Cal in 7:36.3.
I shouldn't fail to mention yesterday's Arizona State and Sonoma State women's varsity race. At the San Diego Crew Classic two weeks ago, ASU lost to SSU in the heats by about four seconds, only to beat SSU in the third final by coming from behind 0.3 seconds to win by about 1.5 seconds. Yesterday, with only each other to face on the course, Arizona State got out the a four second lead at the 500m mark and never looked back, winning by about twenty seconds. Does speed change that quickly in two weeks? Maybe. But don't forget the differences between racing five other boats and racing only one other boat. These two programs are young and still in the process of adding roster depth, coaching depth, and equipment/infrastructure, and their time spent at the Windermere classic has probably give their teams a great deal of experience, from both racing and watching.
The men's rankings, on the other hand, played out pretty much according to the numbers, with some spirited racing at all levels. Cal defeated Wisconsin in the varsity and freshman events, although the Badger second varsity boat stunned Cal with a strong first thousand meters from which the Bears tried to but could not recover from, preventing a sweep. Full credit to the Badgers for being able to row that kind of race on a little less than a month's worth of water time the next day after two races. UC Davis showed its class in the WCC schools as it closed out a textbook win against local Santa Clara University. Gonzaga, one of this season's premier mid-major (can I use that term in rowing?), west coast men's rowing programs, was beaten by Oregon State with a slightly less than four second margin. With this weekend's results, Oregon State shows that the program is still alive, but the Beavers will have to pick up some speed before their Washington dual next week in Seattle, their meet with Stanford and WSU in Eugene in two weeks, and Pac-10s next month.
In the marquee matchup of the afternoon, the #1 Washington men's varsity eight defeated the #2 Stanford men's varsity, defending their #1 ranking and serving notice to the Cal Bears, who will face them in two weeks. Stanford, pushed to their limits against Wisconsin in that pummeling headwind yesterday, was unable to gain ground on the Huskies in any part of the race. The blistering last 500m Stanford speed that Wisconsin and Cal had fallen to was simply not enough, as Washington preempted Stanford's sprint with ease, avenging last year's Windermere regatta defeat at the hands of Stanford. With their #1 ranking looking very legitimate as the season progresses, Washington will be the crew to chase at the Pac-10 championships in mid-May.
So that's a wrap. The women's NCAA scene has been jumbled up a bit, and the national rankings can find a little more legitimacy, such that fewer abnormal decisions will be made concerning NCAA championship field selections. Virginia and Notre Dame have left the west coast schools with a firm impression of the burgeoning speed out east of the Mississippi. The lightweight rankings have seen the rise of Stanford again, but Princeton's star remains uneclipsed as they head back to the east coast with their #1 ranking intact. Washington's men are at the top of their class, and it's up to the rest of the field to match the Huskies' speed by the IRA regatta.
I hope you were able to watch the jamcotimes.com webcast live, and if you weren't, the splits were fairly indicative of the crews' ability throughout the race. Special thanks to Kent Mitchell, Jeff Shimbo, and the rest of the jamcotimes.com crew for their invaluable insight and their unique contribution to American rowing. Thanks also go to Stanford crew and Windermere Real Estate for hosting this truly national regatta. It's been great to see crews from everywhere race and test their speed against competitors from opposite sides of the nation. Good luck to the crews who raced here this weekend: we'll be watching for improvement in your respective championships!
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