Racing - March 10-11

A lot of teams were in action for the first time this weekend, with perhaps the biggest races occurring in Sacramento at the Sacramento State Invitational. The heavyweight V8 event was a seven boat race which included both the Stanford and Cal lightweights. Stanford finished third, 11 seconds off of the winning Sacramento State heavies, and just 0.6 seconds behind the second place St, Mary's heavies. Cal was seventh, 29 seconds behind Stanford. I don't know how fast the Sacramento State heavies might be, but beating 3 heavy boats, rowing one even, and beating Cal, has to make Stanford pretty satisfied with their first race. This could be a fast Cardinal boat this year which would make Windermere an interesting race. Cal, meanwhile, is glad this is just their first race and happy to know how much faster they need to be.

The lightweight four race in Sacramento was won by Stanford by just more than a second over St. Mary's. Humboldt State was third, followed by Santa Clara, Cal, Sonoma State, and Mills College.

Staying on the West Coast, the LMU lights raced the UCLA freshmen, losing by 27 and 18 seconds to the two Bruin boats.

At the Rollins Invitational UCF was back in action, beating heavy eights from Villanova and Rollins, but losing to Nova Southeastern heavies by 3 seconds. UCF also raced a light four in the heavyweight B four race, losing to Nova Southeastern by less than a second and beating Villanova by 22 seconds.

The Keuper Cup in Fellsmere Florida ran a light four race which was won by Florida Tech, 33 seconds ahead of Temple and 59 seconds ahead of Embry-Riddle. Interesting to see Temple race a lightweight boat.

Back to California we go where a light four from UCSD beat its own heavy four as well as one from UC Irvine. In the novice four, a Long Beach State light four beat a heavy four from UC Irvine as well as both light and heavy fours from UCSD.

Lehigh and Bucknell also raced this weekend, but they raced heavyweight teams and it's not clear if the lightweights raced as unit or which boat they might have been. Bucknell, of course, has made a habit of racing its lights as the 2V, but a look at the roster would suggest that the 2V they just raced against Alabama was a mixed weight boat.