The UCSD women’s crew team won one of six races in a three-way home meet against UCSB and Chapman University on April 24.

“I think the varsity has done a great job continuing steady improvement, but the novices really came into their own at this regatta,” UCSD head coach Patti Pinkerton said.

UCSD picked up a victory over UCSB in the second novice eight race, with the Tritons finishing more than 13 seconds ahead of the Gauchos in a time of 8 minutes, 9.35 seconds.

UCSB, however, was victorious in the other five races. Chapman was notably underrepresented at the meet.

“Unfortunately, Chapman did not have enough varsity members to race, so it essentially turned out to be a dual [meet] against UCSB,” senior Jennifer Watters said.

UCSB won the varsity eight race in a time of 7:13.1, while the Tritons posted a time of 7:24.6 for second place.

UCSD’s losing gap was lower than the last time the Tritons and Gauchos squared off against each other.

The same was true in the first novice eight race, which provided the closest margin of victory as all three teams competed.

“The novice eight was leading, but caught a rolling wake badly, and one of the rowers lost her oar,” Pinkerton said.

The Gauchos won the race with a time of 7:27.2, followed closely by the Tritons’ mark of 7:30.24. Chapman was left in the wake with its third-place time of 8:37.19.

“We were very aggressive during the race, and stayed with them for the first half of the race,” Pinkerton said.

However, UCSB inched away from the Triton boat when it started its sprint home, allowing the Gauchos to win by a relatively low margin of victory.

The novice eight consisted of coxswain Tiffany Banzon, freshman stroke Amanda Major, sophomore Katie Murray, junior Christine King and freshmen Katie Kilduff, Megan Hagquist, Leah Llach, Dana Hunt and Dani McFall.

Although the outgoing tide slowed things down a little, the race was still swift and strong, and the team was content with the improvement over UCSB.

“As it was, across the board we improved about two boat-lengths on [UCSB],” Pinkerton said.

At the March 27 Berg Cup, UCSB won all six races, but UCSD’s strong recent results indicate that the team has been able to close the gap as the result of an extensive workout schedule.

“We’ve been in our overload training period, and [we] will finally begin to slightly taper off for our upcoming championships,” Watters said.

It was the last home race for the Tritons’ five four-year athletes, including co-captains Watters and Liz Jones, along with Stefanie Barriere, Alexis Kleckner and coxswain Claire Romelfanger.

The tri-meet was also the last home race for the team’s other four seniors, including varsity rowers Tess Kornfield, Carly Moore and Chelsea Smith and novice rower Candy Yu.

According to the most recent national Division II polls available at www.row2k.com, UCSD women’s crew is ranked No.3.

UCSD women’s crew will be back in action at the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships, which will be held at Lake Natoma, Calif., on May 1 and May 2.