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, as the University of Washington returned after a three-year absence to win the top 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 in. But it seemed the big dogs are back.
Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Purdue, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Notre Dame ” name a great university and it probably was 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 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, which came in fifth.
“Second place is our best-ever performance. We got a third before, so we are moving up,” first year head coach Kim Cupini said. “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 said. “But we haven’t met Gonzaga, so the conference championships in three weeks (May 2) should be a good match-up.”
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 play 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 remaining competitive against Long Beach and Northern California club crews by reaching the grand finals.
Local participants included teams from UCSD, SDSU, USD, the ZLAC women’s club and SDRC. All of them make their home on Mission Bay.
SDRC and ZLAC offer junior summer camp programs. SDRC is co-ed, while ZLAC features introductory camps for high school-age girls. SDRC information is available at www.SDRC-row.org; click on “juniors.” For ZLAC club on Pacific Beach Drive, visit www.ZLAC.com.