UCSD women’s crew kicked off its spring season with a 2,000-meter course meet at Mission Bay against rival UC Irvine on March 2. The Tritons finished first in all but one race, which included a disputed race that disqualified Irvine’s top boat.
Since the Tritons do not start speed work until the last six weeks of the season, this meet served as a chance for UCSD to see how it stands against a team that started speed work early on.
“”I was expecting them to take an early lead, but we’ll hold our own because we have better endurance,”” said UCSD head coach Patti Pinkerton. “”We’ll beat them at the end of the season; I’m not willing to change the training program to beat them now.””
The second varsity eight, which raced first, finished second with a time of 7:34.6 — 7.7 seconds behind UCI. According to Pinkerton, Irvine pulled away in the last stages of the race for a sprint finish.
Next, the novice four raced two boats against one from Irvine. The UCSD B boat came in first at 8:31.1, Irvine placed second with 8:37.7 and the UCSD A boat finished at 8:40.8.
The third race was the varsity eight race. The course includes a dog-leg, which means each boat must stay in its specific lane, especially when rounding the buoy.
“”[At the buoy, Irvine cut inside the buoy,] despite warnings from the officials, and interfered with the Triton crew, which led to a disqualification,”” Pinkerton said.
At the time of the cut, Irvine was ahead by half a boat length.
“”[We] expected to make up [the time] on the turn,”” Pinkerton said. “”But [we] faltered at the foul.””
UCSD finished with a time of 7:23.73.
“”It’s disappointing. It doesn’t feel like a win,”” Pinkerton said of the automatic win due to the disqualification. “”But for the first time, we came off the line with Irvine. It shows the maturity of the crew that we were five beats slower than them and still with them.””
Junior Alexis Kleckner, a rower on the varsity eight, commented on the race and the disqualification.
“”The win isn’t as important as our times, and unfortunately, our time did not reflect the skills we’ve been working hard to refine the past few months of practice,”” Kleckner said. “”Few of us have dealt with a disqualification in a race, so we were unsure as to how we should approach it. I can confidently say we’ve all learned from this experience and will hopefully use this in future races.””
Next, the novice eight raced two boats against one from Irvine. The UCSD A finished with a time of 7:28.0 to Irvine’s 7:34.22. The UCSD B finished third about 30 seconds behind the A boat.
“”Before the race, I know that I was really nervous but excited at the same time,”” said novice rower Cara Kuebert, who rowed in the UCSD A boat. “”We have been working so hard for over five months, and now we were finally able to compete, which is really exciting.””
The last race was the varsity four, in which Irvine finished behind UCSD at 9:14.4, while UCSD came in at 8:37.06.
“”Right before the race, Claire [Romelfanger], Anne [Roddy] and I were coming off the loss to the UCI JV boat,”” said UCSD’s Liz Record. “”We used that frustration and anger to boost ourselves up, and Amanda [Shirley] and Amber [Hopkins] were pretty pumped themselves. And as we rowed up to the starting line, we had committed to each other to refuse to lose. We had a great start and got a small lead right off the bat.””
Pinkerton was also excited about the Tritons’ performance against UCI.
“”I’m very, very pleased with how strong we were, considering we haven’t done any speed work,”” Pinkerton said.
A majority of the rowers on the novice boats are freshmen, many of whom have no previous rowing experience. However, after the first race of the season, the dedication to crew was cemented.
“”When we crossed that finish line ahead of the other team, it made getting up at 5 a.m. every morning seem like a small price to pay for that feeling,”” said Ashley Adams, a freshman on the novice eight A boat.
The Tritons will host a dual meet this weekend against rivals Long Beach State on March 8 and UC Berkeley Lightweights on March 9.
