At the largest gathering of eight person crews in the U.S. in four years, including more than 90 teams and 3,000 athletes, the historic favorites proved their power over the waters with the University of Washington returned after a three-year absence to win the top men’s and women’s events.
The Huskies took home the men’s Copley Cup and the women’s Jessop-Whittier Cup Sunday, April 6, from the 35th annual Crew Classic on Mission Bay at Crown Point Shores. Washington’s dominance has not been felt since 2002. Since then Cal, Stanford and USC have stepped into their absence from the Crew Classic. But it seemed the big dogs are back.
Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Purdue, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Notre Dame ” name a great university and they probably were there.
Local crews also made impressive strides rowing against the elite crews. UCSD posted a 6-minute time against teams from Ohio State, Syracuse and Penn. The time was 7 seconds from a win and 20 seconds off the best of the best, but to be that close in the Copley Cup class, the accomplishment for a non-scholarship Division II school was like Joes versus the Pros.
The UCSD men moved up to the top class in 2008 after winning the Cal Cup in 2007.
The top women’s performance of the weekend was put in by the USD varsity crew.
The Toreros finished second in the women’s Cal Cup, just under a second behind UC Davis and 10 seconds ahead of SDSU, who came in 5th.
“Second place is our best-ever performance. We got a third before, so we are moving up,” said first year head coach Kim Cupini. “It was a great race ” I’m happy.”
After two years as assistant coach, the USD alum knows her competition.
“We have met and beaten all the other teams in our (WCC) conference,” Cupini continued. “But we haven’t met Gonzaga, so the conference championships in three weeks (May 2) should be a good matchup.”
Helping pull the Toreros to a silver medal pace was senior crew member from San Diego, Robin Smith. Helping to call the USD varsity pace was coxswain Allyn Delozier.
“Allyn is just a freshman but she is an excellent coxswain,” Cupini said. “She knows rowing, she makes adjustments well, she is dependable, and most importantly, her crewmates trust her.”
The local universities haven’t seen a women’s team win a major victory since the SDSU women won the women’s Cal Cup race in 2005.
On April 12 the City Championships between USD, UCSD and SDSU will be played out on Mission Bay.
Other highlights of the Crew Classic competition included both the men’s masters from the San Diego Rowing Club (SDRC) and women’s masters from ZLAC remain competitive against Long Beach and northern California club crews by reaching the grand finals.
Local participants in the Crew Classic included teams from UCSD, SDSU, USD, the ZLAC women’s club and SDRC. All of them make their home on Mission Bay.
Both clubs offer outstanding juniors summer camp programs in June, July and August.
SDRC is co-ed while ZLAC features introductory camps for high school age girls.
SDRC information is available from their website www.SDRC-row.org and click on “juniors.”
The historic all-women’s ZLAC club on Pacific Beach Drive has information available at www.ZLAC.com.