MELBOURNE, Fla. - UC San Diego women's crew raced on both coasts over the weekend, with the varsity eight taking part in the Florida Division II Challenge against the Southwest rowing powers in Melbourne, Florida, while the second varsity eight and novice squads competed at home in the San Diego Crew Classic.
Day one in Florida saw the varsity eight competing against Nova Southeastern University, the defending Southeast Champion, in the first race of the day along with host Florida Tech. The Sharks edged out to a two seat lead over the Tritons and host Florida Tech, then swung out to a solid lead by the race mid point, leaving FIT and the Tritons to duel for second place. Florida Tech eventually was able to pull out a four-length lead at the finish line, as UCSD recorded a final time of 7:06.3.
"We had a race plan and a focus for the race," said Head Coach Pattie Pinkerton, "As a team, we are still working on executing it."
The Triton women raced Barry University in the first race of the second day, seeking to improve on Friday's races. The Tritons came off the line with Barry, but Barry edged out after the power shift and continued to build their lead. The Triton women continued to attack through the race, and came off the water confident that they improved, finishing with a time of 7:43.1 against a squad that won its last four DII races of the spring while dominating the northeast and southeast regions.
“Barry's been very strong this spring,” said Pinkerton, “Our goal was to maintain our poise and our technique under pressure. The crew executed their race plan beautifully, and attacked in the following race against Nova Southeastern and University of Charleston.”
In a headwind gusting up to 20 mile per hour, the Tritons finished out the series two hours later with a second place finish in the final race against Nova and the University of Charleston. UCSD finished with a time of 8:23.9, as the group of coxswain Lisa Yen, stroke Denise Kleckner, 7-seat Jaime Bigwood, 6-seat Summer Austin, 5-seat Megan Simmons, 4-seat Courtney Escajeda, 3 seat Wanda Chin, 2 seat Jesi Bennett, and bow Lynn Nguyen concluded a great competition in Fellsmere Canal.
“We combined technique and power in this race,” Pinkerton said. “We stayed with Nova longer, and by attacking, pushed the race away form Charleston, scoring the largest margin of the regatta, finishing 230 seconds behind Nova, but over a minute ahead of Charleston."
The Tritons next competition is at the Berg Cup April 10th in Newport Harbor, where they will face Crew Classic champion University of San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, host Orange Coast College, and Long Beach State.
