During the early part of the season, women’s rowing coach
Amy Fuller Kearney regularly told her team to anticipate races
against the top 20 teams coming down to the last 10 strokes. At
Saturday’s competition, with No. 14 UCLA battling No. 18
Minnesota, the prophecy came true.
In fact, the close varsity eight race in Marina Del Rey forced
officials to refer to video footage of the finish line in
slow-motion. According to senior co-captain Liz Pallas-Jacobs, the
varsity eight boat held a lead of half a boat length early in the
race.
“It was a battle in the last 750, and we were down with
100 meters to go,” Pallas-Jacobs said.
The boat barely pulled ahead in the last part of the race, and
after careful review the officials determined UCLA the victors by
only 0.2 seconds, with a time of 6:30.50 to Minnesota’s
6:30.70.
Although Minnesota ranks No. 18, coach Fuller Kearney thinks the
Gophers are better than their ranking suggests. Freshman varsity
eight rower and former junior national team member Vanessa Teff
said the competitive race shows the speed of the top-20
schools.
“We have much more to learn, (but) the win gave us a lot
of confidence,” she said.
The second varsity eight boat also won a competitive race
against the Gophers, but they did so by two seconds.
“We got out ahead at the start, and they almost crept back
up on us at the end,” junior stroke Leah Wachtel said.
The other wins for the Bruins on Saturday came earlier in the
day when two varsity four boats rowed against the Long Beach
Masters in an exhibition race.
Although the Long Beach Masters team included two former U.S.
national team members, the Bruins’ A boat maintained a lead
for the whole race, and the B boat used a last-minute sprint to
beat the Masters boat.
Despite a week of practicing in stormy weather, the
women’s rowing team did not let it rain on their parade at
Saturday’s races, as they won all four of the boat races
entered.
The team canceled practice once last week due to lightning, and
the other days the girls stroked in the rain.
“Those practices helped us be prepared for all types of
conditions,” Pallas-Jacobs said, referring to the cloudy
races this past weekend.
With first places against Minnesota under their belt, the team
continues to look ahead at getting a bid to the NCAAs.
“It is definitely possible and still in sight,” said
Wachtel.
Continuing on the road to the Tournament, this weekend the
Bruins compete in the Windermere Stanford Regatta at Redwood
Shores, where they will race against highly ranked teams Tennessee
and Central Florida.