Despite their wishes for a top-10 finish at the NCAA Championships, UCLA women’s rowing ended its season last weekend by finishing in 14th place at nationals in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
At what many are calling the most competitive championship in years, the Varsity Eight boat placed fourth in its first qualifying heat on the first day of competition, finishing behind East Coast powerhouses Brown, Virginia and Harvard.
“There was great racing,” UCLA coach Amy Fuller Kearney said. “The field was really impressive.”
This season, the Bruins have had trouble holding onto a lead in the last 500 meters, and the problem continued to present itself in this race.
While Brown and Virginia solidified an early lead, the Bruins’ steady pace kept them in third place until Harvard surprisingly pushed ahead during the third leg.
In order to receive an automatic qualifying spot in the semifinals, a third-place finish is necessary. The Bruins failed to reach the finish line before Harvard ““ just one second behind ““ and therefore failed to earn a semifinal bid.
But the competition was far from over. Less than two hours later, UCLA and six other non-qualifers raced again in an elimination heat known as the “repechage,” with another chance to finish in the top three and reach the semifinals. Right from the beginning of the race, No. 7 Stanford, No. 9 Princeton and No. 10 Tennessee took the lead.
As the race came to a close, No. 19 Washington surpassed the Bruins and finished fifth in the heat, just ahead of No. 8 California, the previous two-time defending champion.
The final race of the season on Sunday was essentially a smaller-scale rematch of the previous day’s repechage. Facing Cal, Central Florida and Washington once again, the Bruins did not fall prey to their tendency to peter out during the third 500 meters of the race.
While Cal started out ahead of the pack, the Bruins held second place for the rest of the race. When Washington made a late-race surge in effort to surpass the Bruins, the team dug especially deep, holding off the Huskies and crossing the line at 6:51.55, just over three seconds behind first-place Cal.
Fuller Kearney was impressed with the Huskies’ race.
“They definitely put forward their best effort of the weekend,” she said. “We knew it would be an all-out battle, so we put together our best performance of the season.”
Brown took first place overall, becoming the Division I Champion for the fifth time.
While the season might be over for the Bruins, Fuller Kearney is looking ahead to the potential success for the 2007-2008 season.
“It’s funny because I think the NCAA Championships really fueled our fire again for next season, after a long year full of trials,” she said.
“A lot of people were looking forward to it being over. But after seeing our performance and how close we are and how well we’ll do next year, we’re all really fired up and excited about doing what it takes to get better next season.”