Redwood City, Calif./OAKLAND – The No. 1 California Golden Bears men's rowing team concluded an impressive weekend going undefeated across the Pac-12 Invitational at the Redwood Shores in Redwood City, CA and the Ebright Invitational at the Oakland Estuary in Oakland, CA Sunday morning.
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At the Pac-12 Invitational, Cal's V8+ faced off against No. 4 Syracuse's V8+ in one of the most highly anticipated matchups of the weekend. Both boats stayed relatively close to each other with Cal holding a half-boat length lead through 300 meters. By the time both boats reached the 1,000-meter mark, the Bears built almost a two-boat length lead and were able to hold off Syracuse for the win finishing in 5:34.8. In addition to defeating Syracuse, the V8+ took down No. 6 Northeastern and No. 11 Boston University this weekend.Â
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The 2V8+ had one of the closest races of the day against Syracuse's 2V8+. Only a couple of seats separated the two boats halfway down the course with Cal having the slight lead. The two boats remained neck and neck over the last 1,000 meters with the Bears able to just edge Syracuse by less than a second and finish with a time of 5:41.4, besting their time from yesterday by three seconds.
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"Obviously Syracuse is a pretty quick opponent and a quick program," Cal head coach
Scott Frandsen said. "We needed to be at our best to give them a good race and I think the varsity definitely did that. The second varsity had a fairly gritty performance to win their race. I'm pleased and I think there was a lot learned over the weekend and we'll adjust and learn from that. Hopefully that puts us in a good position for the rest of the season and specifically the Washington dual in two weeks."
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Rounding out the day at the Pac-12 Invitational was Cal's 3V8+ going up against Wisconsin's 3V8+ in a rematch from the previous morning. The Bears were able to jump out to an early lead in the opening 500 meters and extend it to over two boat lengths halfway down the course, winning with a time of 5:47.6.
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Further up north at the Ebright Invitational, Cal's 4V8+, 5V8+ and freshman 8+ all competed against crews from Orange Coast College and Santa Clara University. The freshman 8+ defeated the top boats from Orange Coast College and Santa Clara finishing with a time of 5:56.73, besting its time from yesterday by almost 15 seconds. Cal's 4V8+ also had its best time of the weekend, defeating Orange Coast College's and Santa Clara's 2V8+ crews in a time of 6:03.37, about 10 seconds faster than its previous day's best. Wrapping up the day was Cal's 5V8+, which had the largest margin of victory of the day, defeating Santa Clara's 3V8+ and 4V8+ by 14 seconds with a time of 6:14.28.
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"Today followed a similar theme for the weekend of trying different lineups," Cal assistant coach
Brandon Shald said. "Across the board we raced lineups that we hadn't raced before, and I think that everyone performed at a pretty high level. We were running an aggressive kind of first 1,500 meters and then kind of working on the end bits and pieces to keep it clean."
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The Bears have a week off before traveling to a dual meet at the University of Washington on April 22.
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