Husky Crew off to a good start in San Diego

by John Berkowitz on Apr 5, 2009 9:04 AM PDT

Five of Washington's six crews won their heats Saturday in the 36th annual San Diego Crew Classic, and all six crews advanced to today's grand finals.

In the Copley Cup heats, the Huskies men's varsity opened up a half-seat lead in the final 500 meters to finish in 5 minutes, 51.65 seconds, winning by three seconds over Harvard.

"Our goal was to progress to the finals tomorrow and we accomplished that," said men's coach Michael Callahan. "It should be a very exciting finals against some strong rivals."

In the Jessop-Whittier Cup heats, the Huskies' women's varsity led early but was overtaken in the third 500 meters by Michigan and finished second in 6:40.62.

In other men's races, the UW novice eight advanced with a win in 6:08.60, and the JV eight won in 6:08.62. In other women's races, the UW JV eight won in 6:08.60 and the novice eight won in 7:08.18.

Washington State's women's varsity eight (6:44.14) and novice eight (7:19.45) each advanced to the grand finals.

Live in-race updates will be available on Washington rowing's official Twitter page Twitter.com/UWHuskyCrew and on the San Diego Crew Classic Twitter page Twitter.com/CrewClassic.

The Husky men are currently ranked No. 1 in the country, according to the latest USRowing preseason poll, released on Tuesday. The Husky men earned eight first-place votes to take the top spot, just edging defending national champion Wisconsin by four points.

The Husky women are ranked No. 4 in the country on the latest CRCA/USRowing poll, also released on Tuesday. The women trail Yale, Stanford and Cal. Michigan State claims the fifth spot to round out the top five.

Huskies sweep series with Arizona schools

The third-ranked Washington softball team exploded for 11 runs on 15 hits to knock off No. 4 Arizona State 11-3 in five innings Saturday at Husky Softball Stadium.

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The sixth boat

came in second, so 5 firsts and a second is getting after it in my book.

Go crew

by T9ODawg on Apr 5, 2009 9:22 AM PDT reply actions

Watch the Frosh

The UW frosh boat is loaded with world class talent. If the coaches don’t touch this boat it will win the national championship with open water. However, I predict that they will shuffle the boats to get faster and the two germans (Mathis Jessen and/or Tom Lehmann) in the 8 and 7 seats, respectively, may end up in the varsity.

I speculate that the coaches wanted to see if they could beat the big boys with the current lineups but Cal beat us in the varsity and JV races so all bets are off. Look for movement from the frosh shell and maybe a shift of one or two varsity guys to the JV shell. Watch the Cal dual meet at the Cut in a couple of weeks and THAT will do more to set the tone for the season than the San Diego Crew Classic.

by GREATBIGUT on Apr 6, 2009 10:02 AM PDT reply actions