UCLA women’s rowing was unable to pull off any upsets during Sunday’s Pac-12 championship at Lake Natoma in Gold River. Competing in a heavily contested conference field, the Bruins failed to finish higher than sixth in their four races, ending the day in sixth place overall with 11 points.
While the No. 17 Bruins held a strong national standing, they were underdogs over the weekend. Four of the other six Pac-12 crews are in the top 10, and only unranked Oregon State entered the championship below UCLA.
Before the weekend, all four boats were seeded for their respective races. While the varsity eight and varsity four, both No. 6 seeds, ended up in sixth place, the two other varsity eights fell short of their seedings.
The second varsity eight dropped to last place with a time of 7:09.07, over 10 seconds behind Oregon State and two positions behind its No. 5 seeding.
UCLA’s third varsity eight had the highest seed at No. 4, but the boat was only able to finish ahead of Stanford in sixth place on Sunday. Although the final result was worse than expected, the eight’s 7:12.26 mark was just two seconds behind the two schools that finished ahead of it.
No. 2 Washington and No. 4 Cal powered through the rest of the field. The Huskies had the first place finishes in three of the four races, but the Golden Bears won the overall team championship because of a win in the varsity eight. With the championship, Cal clinched a spot in the NCAA Championship.
Almost all of the other Pac-12 schools, possibly including UCLA, are likely to receive spots in the national races when the field is announced Tuesday, since six of the seven teams are ranked in the top 20. While half of the 22-team championship field is decided by conference winners, the other 11 are chosen with at-large bids. The NCAA races will be hosted by the Pac-12 at Lake Natoma in two weeks.
Compiled by Tanner Walters, Bruin Sports reporter.