LAS VEGAS – The Cal men's rowing team kicked off the spring season in triumphant fashion Saturday, sweeping races at the Las Vegas Invitational and taking the top two spots at the UC Challenge Cup in Newport Beach.

The Bears' varsity eight and second varsity eight competed at Lake Las Vegas, and each won races against Dartmouth and Oregon State. Cal's top boat defeated Darmouth by nine seconds and beat the Beavers by over 20 seconds. The second eight boat notched wins by over 13 seconds against the Big Green and 20 seconds against OSU.

"It was a great weekend of racing," Cal head coach Scott Frandsen said. "Having those two races provided an opportunity for our guys to learn – a lot more than they would have learned with just one race."

Freshmen Campbell Crouch and Adam Stephenson made their Cal debuts in a varsity boat, each competing in the second eight. Each rowed in a freshmen boat at the Princeton Chase in the fall but Saturday provided each his initial varsity competition.

"There was a lot of experience gained for them, for sure," Frandsen said.

Frandsen said he made some changes to the boat lineups for the Oregon State races.

"The first race was a bit jittery," Frandsen said. "It wasn't quite what we wanted in both boats. They were highly spirited and with great effort, but it wasn't the flow that we wanted. We moved things around a bit with the lineups and did what we came here to do and got the performance that we wanted. It's something to build off of."

The Bears sent a third varsity eight and a freshman boat to the UC Challenge Cup in Newport Beach and each won all four of its round robin races. That put Bears against Bears in the Henry T. Nicholas III Challenge Cup, and it was Cal's Freshmen 8 narrowly defeating the third varsity boat for the championship.

The Bears now get back to training for another month before competing at the San Diego Crew Classic the first weekend of April.