Finals day on Mission Bay featured perfect race conditions in the morning with flat water and almost no wind. By day's end, crews from west coast, Alabama, Florida, Canada, New England, and the late 1980s had taken home trophies.
Copley Cup
The grand final for the Copley Cup played out as expected, with the Cal Bears taking home the gold by a length over Stanford. The Cardinal pressed Cal for the first thousand, before the Bears gradually crept out over the last half of the race for the final margin.
Coach Teti was pleased with the performance of the Varsity 8 though he acknowledged that they were behind where they were at the end of last year. “The Varsity will be a work in progress. Not as talented as last year, but hard working and really good kids. If we want to challenge for the top spots at the IRA we will have to improve. We are well aware of what we will be up against.”
Teti also praised the performance of his in-state rival: “I also think that Craig has done a great job with the Stanford crew and congrats to them for a strong performance today, we have a lot of respect for them.”
Michigan reversed their loss to Oregon State in Saturday’s heat to take third, a very solid performance for the club team. UC San Diego finished fifth in their first trip to Copley final, edging a feisty Temple crew.
The small field made for an unusually sparse three boat Petite Final, but even that race provided some excitement as first Jacksonville and then Bucknell blazed out in front of perennial IRA contender Northeastern. It was not until midway through the race that Northeastern finally found a groove, and even then Bucknell clung gamely to the lead for 500 meters as the Huskies surged. Northeastern prevailed, by a deck, and it will be interesting to see how their season unfolds out east after a rough weekend here in the west.
Cal also took the JV and Frosh events to sweep the collegiate events at the regatta. “We were pleased with the performance of the team,” Teti said. “ The frosh and JV should be stronger than last year, and big kudos for the Crew Classic for putting on a great regatta once again.“
Jessop-Whittier Cup
USC raced a very mature race to back up their strong performance in the heat and win the Cup over Stanford and Cal. The Trojans led early, weathered attacks from both Stanford and Cal in turn, but broke away decisively from both PAC-10 rivals in the third 500 to win by nearly a length. “The Varsity eight did a great job of executing our race plan,” Head Coach Zenon Babraj said following the race. “We graduated only a few athletes last year, so overall the team is more mature and focused. Of course we had a good day, but it’s early in the season and still a lot of racing between now and NCAAs.”
The Trojans left a dogfight in their wake between Cal and Stanford, with round one going to the Cardinal in the end. Both crews made a bid for the win outright in the second 500, with Stanford getting out in front of USC before Cal stormed through both. Over the second thousand, Cal looked to have the measure of the Cardinal, but Stanford unleashed a “crew classic” sprint along the shore to take this one. The two Bay Area rivals will meet another four more times this spring, so there will be many opportunities to adjust race plans before NCAAs.
The drama continued even off the podium in this final: women’s rowing, after all, is an NCAA sport and it is never too early for teams to start making their case for better ranking, and an NCAA bid. Wisconsin, racing as #15 after a stumble against Texas in March, made a strong charge into 4th place here, putting themselves ahead of both #8 Washington and #13 Washington State. Washington’s 5th place was not in the plan for the Huskies, but they did take both the 2V event and, for the third straight year, the Novice 8, so the Dawgs have depth to play with, once again. Even the Petite had a few implications for the rankings, with Oklahoma gutting out a tight win over #11 UCLA.
In another nod to the NCAA, the Classic broke with its longstanding “eights only” tradition and allowed the women’s teams to bring their varsity fours so as to race their full NCAA squads. USC took gold in this first-ever fours event and, along with a third place showing in the 2V, we can say that the Trojans are solidly in the picture for the 2011 National Championship.
Cal Cup
In the women’s Cal Cup final, Alabama stormed out from lane six to take the win over Tulsa and Kansas State, rebounding from their 2nd place heat finish on Saturday. This was the Tide’s first trip to San Diego, and they made it count despite the tight field. “Everyone really stepped and we were able to make some adjustments between our first races and finals that made a difference for us,” said Head Coach Larry Davis. “We attacked a bit more and had a more aggressive race plan in finals. The Varsity 8 dug down a little deeper and did what they were capable of doing. They made a really good move about midway through the race, pulling ahead and really pushing through the third 500.”
The men’s Cal Cup is heading to Canada for the first time ever, following University of British Columbia’s strong race on Sunday. After some excitement in the heats from the lower seeds, it was all down to the heat winners here on Sunday, and UBC got out early from the field. "We ran through the first minute of the race a rating much higher than normal, but everyone was so pumped to get the lead and it just seemed to work," said three seat Garret Bouhuyzen-Wenger. The Thunderbird eight maintained their advantage down the course, winning by four seconds over Drexel and Notre Dame.
USA Eights Race for Hart Perry
In the showdown between the three USA men’s eights in memory of the late Hart Perry, the sweep A boat took win over the scullers in front of a packed beach on Mission Bay. There were even chants of “USA, USA!” from the spectators on the beach.
Alumni Racing
Filed under ”you heard it here first:” the BMA Cornell women took the Open Women’s eight by open water, powered by two-time Olympian Andrea Thies and three members of Cornell’s 1989 National Champion eight. The eight then turned right around for an epic stroke-for-stroke battle in the Masters Women’s eight. The bid for double gold came just a canvas short, but not a bad set of 2ks for the weekend. The San Diego men, out to commemorate the 25th anniversary of winning the school’s first Cal Cup, with—what else—a good hard 2000 meter battle, came up second, as well, but have set a high bar for all future reunion rows.
Sites and Sounds
The location of the regatta jumbotron created its own “tide effect” for every race: with a majority of the crowd watching the first 1k from the grass in front of the jumbotron, and then everyone filtering down to the beach for the finish, anyone attempting to go against the current got swept away.
There were some travel nightmares brewing at the close of the regatta, with Southwest Airlines cancelling several Sunday night flights. One team had their departure delayed over 24 hours to Monday night at 8pm. Ouch.
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