The 38th running of the San Diego Crew Classic began Saturday under cloudy skies and breezy conditions. A straight tail in the morning shifted to a strong cross from the afternoon, but overall the racing ran fast and smooth.
COPLEY CUP
Cal dominated the first heat with the fastest time of the day, setting them up to be the favorites to win on Sunday. The second two qualifying spots went to Oregon State and Michigan with Bucknell nearly knocking out Michigan at the line. Stanford won the second heat with Temple and D-II’s UCSD also rowing through to the final.
UCSD’s effort, which pushed them through both Northeastern and Jacksonville, and nearly Temple as well, was both gutsy and historic: this will be the first time ever that a San Diego school lines up for a shot at the Copley Cup. UCSD’s coach, Zach Johnson, whose crews have collected 2 Cal Cups in recent years, said that “this shows what we are capable of doing” against D-I competition. While taking a Copley Cup title home to West Mission Bay might be a tall order against Cal, team captain Justin Gordon told reporters that he feels “very confident we’ll be right in the mix with Oregon State, Temple and Michigan.”
On the flip side of that same heat, it was a tough go for Northeastern, who finished in fifth behind the pace pushed by USCD and Temple. The Huskies will row for some redemption in the petite, all part of a rebuilding year for the Huskies, who are down to nine varsity athletes for the spring.
JESSOP-WHITTIER CUP
USC flexed their muscles in the first heat, throwing down the fastest time and beating Cal and Washington State. USC coach Zenon Babraj was quoted a few weeks ago as saying that he thinks “this is the strongest we have looked since 2007 when we had a chance at a national title." The Trojans rowed very much that way here today: looking long and strong, and very much in control as they made their way to the final. USC’s Varsity 8 finished 6th at NCAAs last year and returns seven from that crew, so they may be poised for speed in 2011.
Stanford, fresh of their dismantling of then #1 Virginia last week, cruised in the second heat, beating Washington and Wisconsin. With a couple Olympians and then some national team alums on the squad, the Cardinal looks to be returning to the form they had in 2009. The final on Sunday will feature 4 top ten teams, with #13 Washington State and #15 Wisconsin looking to make noise and climb in the rankings, also in the mix—all in all, quite a field, so the racing promises to be exciting.
CAL CUP
On the men’s side, Drexel, Notre Dame, and UBC won their heats with UBC having the fastest time, with UCI, UCLA, and Oklahoma City also advancing. These races saw some good battles, with just two to advance in the larger Cal Cup field. Two heats saw crews come out of the middle of the course to upset seeded crews in lanes two and three: UCI got out early on Purdue and Orange coast to grab a spot in the final from Lane 5, while UCLA in lane 4 of their heat came from outside to knock out Lane 3’s Sac State.
The women’s Cal Cup featured one heat that turned into a barn-burner, with Sac State and Georgetown getting the nod by just a handful of seats over a packed field that saw UVic, St Mary’s, and Fordham all within a second of each other, and a second out of qualifying. The other heats saw the finalists pull away more easily: K-State set the fastest time, ahead of a strong push from the national champion Stanford Lights in heat one, while Tulsa and Alabama dueled seat for seat, well ahead of Bates and SMU in Heat 3. On times alone, it will be hard to handicap this one, and the Stanford lights are certainly lurking in a good spot, with some championship experience on their side.
USA EIGHTS RACE
Sunday at 12:30 features a race between three USA Men’s National Team eights training at nearby Chula Vista. The race is in honor of recently passed Hart Perry and the buzz around the regatta is that one eight will be made up of the A-Final pairs from Friday’s Speed Order, the second eight will be pairs from the B-Final, and the third eight will be the top eight scullers. No word on how nervous the rowers were to race the scullers as most of the top ergs right now are on the sculling side. Should be a great race regardless!
ALUMNI CREWS
Fun story out of the club and alumni races that are, of course, also a big deal out here. In addition to the University of San Diego alumni crew reuniting to not just celebrate their 25th anniversary as Cal Cup Champs, but to actually race again, the Cornell women racing as BMA Cornell are the same crew that took the Head of Charles title for master’s women this past year. They are competing in the Open Women’s event and the Master’s Women’s event as well – so 3 races in 24 hours. They started that marathon off by dominating their heat today: leading from start to finish, they handily beat two college crews and a crew from Lincoln Park. To some pundits, it looked like they even settled at the 1500m mark to save energy for tomorrow’s finals . . . cagey!
SITES AND SOUNDS
Call of the day from the course announcer describing the course of a coxswain during the height of the mid-day wind, “This is serpentine to say the least.”
Crazy race of the day occurred in the Women’s Collegiate Novice Heat when one of the trailing crews caught multiple consecutive crabs in the last 500 and drifted into an adjacent lane with another crew. The entire sequence was caught on the jumbo-tron.
Chaos broke out during the collegiate practice time as the lower level finals were coming down the course. There is a back bay on the course that was open for the collegiate crews to train on during the afternoon, though there is no set traffic pattern for crews to follow. There were multiple incidents on Saturday afternoon including two eights exchanging paint, one crew getting pushed into a buoy and snapping an oar, and another crew nearly getting hit by a windsurfer. Hopefully clearer heads prevail and a reliable traffic pattern is established quickly.
For years, the organizers of the regatta have placed stickers below the coxswain seats to help officials identify crews out on the course, but this year the stickers didn’t have any stick, and nearly every crew had to find creative ways of attaching the identifiers to their hulls. Row2k noticed that the most popular method was electrical or duct tape, bonus points if you color coordinated.
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