UCSD men’s and women’s crew competed in the annual San Diego Crew Championships on the weekend of April 7-8.
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The competition put together the top teams in the nation, with universities from around the country taking to the water to see how they ranked among their fellow collegiate athletes.
Both men’s and women’s teams placed high in many events, which shows the improvement this squad has made since the beginning of the year.
In the women’s collegiate lightweight heat A, UCSD placed third behind Princeton University and University of South Florida. In the men’s collegiate novice heat B, UCSD placed fifth behind the top-ranked Huskies of the University of Washington. In the men’s junior varsity heat A, the Tritons finished sixth behind their rivals from UC Berkeley. The women’s collegiate novice heat A proved to be a tough race as the girls came up short against San Diego State University to take fifth overall.
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Both UCSD alumni teams placed fourth in their respective heats, challenging teams such as UC Berkeley and University of Southern California. The women’s A and B teams placed fourth and fifth, respectively, in their open heats.
Sunday showcased the Tritons’ ability to be competitive in all the races in which they participated. In the women’s open petite final, UCSD captured the crown by defeating the Gauchos from UC Santa Barbara.
The men’s open petite, however, did not fare as well, as the B team placed fifth and the A team sixth, losing by 24 seconds to the low-performance all-stars. The men’s cal cup petite team did excellently, placing a close second — only six seconds behind the crew from the University of Puget Sound in Washington.
With only three participants in the men’s junior varsity petite, the team from UCSD fought hard but placed third with a time of 07:08.25, only a few seconds behind its rivals from SDSU.
The last race, the prestigious A.W. Coggeshal Cup, is the women’s collegiate lightweight grand final. As predicted, the Triton women’s crew was a participant in this event. The race was long and arduous, and the team finished with a time of 07:54.22 and fourth place overall. The eventual winners were the Badgers from the University of Wisconsin, with a time of 07:20.70.
“”The San Diego crew classic wasn’t spectacular,”” said men’s head coach Michael Filippone, “”but I was pleased with the way our young squad performed. The challenge we set forth was to go faster than the last meet, to sort of break in the new rowers in varsity.””
The next tournament for the team is the Newport Invitational on Sunday, April 22. The event will start at 7 a.m. at Newport Harbor. The women’s team will find itself in beautiful Marina Del Ray for the Miller Cup on Saturday, April 21. After that, both teams must travel to Lake Natoma for the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Championships on the weekend of April 28-29, which will put them head-to-head with the best crews in the Western United States.
“”We have a different focus going into the Newport Invitational,”” Filippone said. “”Our practices have changed; we are racing the novice teams against each other and are not racing the varsity eight boat in the tournament. I hope to get a top performance from our varsity eight and varsity four boats.””
The goal of the men’s squad next year is to win the Cal Cup and Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship, but the underlining achievement would be to make it to the Division II Championships at the end of the season.
“”The objective would be to have the novice eight team dominate, our varsity four team to win the Pac 10 and the novice lightweight team to capture the WIRA Championship. We want to get UCSD back to the prominent level it was a year ago, with confident rowers and achievement following,”” said Filippone.
