CHULA VISTA, Calif. — Saint Mary's Rowing continues to trend in the right direction with the WCC Championship coming up in a little less than a month. In their final competition tune up before the conference title race, the Gaels headed south to Chula Vista, California to take part in the Triton Invitational, hosted by UC San Diego. Saint Mary's raced against both the host, UC San Diego, as well as another local squad and conference foe, University of San Diego, picking up wins from their top varsity eight boat against both of those schools.
The Gaels first took to the water against WCC foe San Diego, a four time WCC Champion, and 14 time WCC Runner Up. Despite the impressive resume from the Toreros, the Gaels first varsity eight boat picked up their first win of the event, defeating USD by 7+ second margin, with a time of 7:07.78. The second varsity eight and the two varsity four boats dropped their races against the Toreros, however, both four boats shined in their own rights, with the first varsity four coming up less than six seconds short of San Diego with a time of 8:17.16, and the second varsity four, full of student-athletes working their way back into the lineup, continue to improve and get faster.
In race two against host UCSD, the racing conditions got a bit tougher in the later afternoon, but that didn't stop the first varsity eight from continuing to roll, picking up their second win of the event. With the tougher conditions, the Gaels came in for race two with a time of 7:20.78, but that was still nearly five seconds faster than the Tritons. The second Gaels varsity eight boat had a much better start in the race, shaving 12.8 seconds off the time they put up in their first race with a time of 7:31.12, just nine second behind UCSD. Both four boats were also in action against UCSD as well, and made good adjustments despite the tougher conditions.
Head Coach Brian Ebke was extremely pleased with his team's performance. About the event, he noted:
"This was a very successful and fun trip for our team and we are ready for the final step of this season coming up in a few weeks! Our 1V8+ continued to get better and better, as they have at every race this year, and we are really excited about how they're approaching their racing. They've now won their last 6 of their last 7 races, which has been a fun stretch of wins for them! It's been a lot of hard work so it's really exciting to see those athletes enjoy some success and winning after a long road to get there. They've continued to show up every race ready to do their best and they are excited to go down the course 2 more times at WCCs. Our 4+ and 2V4+ took some important steps today, and those are both young boats with a lot of upside so we are excited about what they can do in the next 3 weeks. Our 2V8+ has had a tough season and haven't quite figured out how to get their top speed on the race course but we'll continue to work hard at it over the next few weeks and I know we have some fast people in that boat so I'm confident that we can get it figured out in time for WCCs. Overall, this was a huge weekend for the team and I'm excited about where we are headed into the last 3 weeks of the season."
The WCC Championships will take place on May 17 at Lake Natoma in Sacramento.
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