In its last event of the regular season, the UCSD women’s rowing team came up big Sunday in the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships, winning six medals in the nine-event competition.

Plagued by difficult wind conditions and bad luck, the Triton boats still managed to take three silvers and three bronzes home.

The Triton lightweight boats, ranked seventh in the U.S. Rowing Collegiate Poll, started off poorly; the lightweight four was delayed off the start line by equipment problems.

Tritons Heath Beckman, Emily Gray, Cari Blemker, Julie Snyder and coxswain Liz Edmunson gave rival Humboldt State University a full boat-length lead. The Tritons then played catch-up the rest of the match and fell just short of beating the Lumberjacks in a photo finish.

“”The crew showed tremendous poise to recover and row through the field to get to Humboldt,”” coach Pattie Pinkerton said.

Following its teammates’ example, the lightweight eight team of coxswain Kiley Santana, Beckman, Gray, Blemker, Snyder, Jaime Cooper, Molly James, Claire Doyle and Rebecca Rodriquez caught some bad wind and was two boat-lengths behind its closest competitor when it finally regained its bearings. Despite the adversity, the crew rowed into third place, behind Humboldt State and UCLA.

“”It was disappointing, but the crew responded with courage and determination and felt they put everything they had into it,”” Pinkerton said.

The UCSD varsity boats had a bit of better luck, as the varsity four of coxswain Dylan deKervor, Tiffany Cady, Jillian Drewes, Sharon Bergquist and Nicole Matouk beat out Humboldt State for third place, losing only to SDSU and Willamette University.

However, the varsity eight with deKervor, Bergquist, Drewes, Cady, Matouk, Sara Patton, Jessica Jocius, Lindsay Hall and Morgan Dawirs could only come up with a fourth-place finish after losing third place in a close race to Willamette Univrtsity.

“”We would have liked to medal in both races, but with a very young varsity, it was a spectacular performance,”” Pinkerton said. “”We get better every race and it hurt us that we had three races canceled due to weather in our lead-up.””

The UCSD novice boats had an especially good day, winning two silver and one bronze medal.

The novice four won its qualifying heat, but came up short against SDSU in the final after the Aztec boat came from behind to stun the Tritons.

The novice eight used a late charge to finish neck-and-neck with Saint Mary’s and UCLA in a photo finish. UCSD received second place and Saint Mary’s was judged to have finished third. The novice lightweight eight brought home a bronze medal and the novice lightweight four and second novice eight both finished fourth in their races.

Pinkerton was satisfied with the overall results.

“”We have certainly made our presence felt, and look forward to next year,”” she said.

While Sunday marked the end of the regular season, the Tritons aren’t quite finished yet as they have their eyes on the NCAA Rowing Championships on May 25 through May 27 at Lake Lanier, Ga.