Last weekend at Mission Bay, UCSD men’s crew endured a Jekyll-and-Hyde two days, losing its second dual meet in five years to UC Irvine, then rebounding to sweep Long Beach State University the next day.
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On Saturday the varsity team showed its inexperience as its boat came to a complete stop at one point in its eventual nine-second loss against the Anteaters.
“”I felt pretty confident we could go fast against Irvine, we just didn’t execute fast for a number of reasons,”” said head coach Michael Filippone. “”Our inexperience showed.””
The varsity team was particularly hurt by the loss of team members, as there is only one varsity returner from last year’s eight, a team that was ranked fifth on the West Coast, while there are only two returners from the novice boat.
“”If you had a soccer team, it’s like we lost 13 players from the year before,”” Filippone said. “”Anytime you lose that number of people, it’s going to take time to get up to speed.””
The men’s novice eight boat didn’t fare much better, losing to the Anteaters by 1.5 seconds, while the men’s novice four was the only victorious UCSD boat of the day.
“”It’s not a question of whether you’re going to have a breakdown; ours just came in the race. The thing is, we learned a lot of lessons from that,”” Filippone said. “”I would consider the UCI race to be a learning experience and something that, if we went out and did it today, we’d race 10 to 15 seconds faster.””
In addition, at this point in the season, most crews have not even begun to compete yet.
“”This is such an early race,”” Filippone said. “”This is a month before most of the teams are racing. It is earlier than I’d want it to be. That being said, we learned a lot this weekend.””
However, the next day was quite the opposite, as UCSD crew bounced back to sweep Long Beach State University, again at Mission Bay.
The varsity team had good execution en route to its victory over the 49ers, while the novice squad annihilated the Long Beach novice boat.
“”More important than beating Long Beach was the way the teams raced,”” Filippone said. “”[Both teams] wanted to correct what went wrong the previous day.””
In the end, the weekend proved to be beneficial to the team, as Filippone would rather have it work out the kinks now instead of later.
“”I’m prepared to fail my way to success,”” he said. “”If it means going out there and getting our butts kicked, so be it. We went fast Sunday after getting our butts kicked Saturday. I’m really pleased with a lot of things. Right now it’s a matter of getting things stirred up and seeing what we need to work on and getting ready to go in three weeks.””
The next men’s crew event takes place March 31 at Mission Bay, when the team will compete in the San Diego City Championship.
