Varsity 8+ and Novice 8+ Advance to Grand Finals in San Diego

April 3, 2004

Clemson rowing completes day one of racing at the 31st annual San Diego Crew Classic on Mission Bay in San Diego, CA. Both the Varsity 8+ and Novice 8+ advance to the Grand Finals for their respective races. The Second Varsity 8+ will move on to the Petite Finals.

Racing in the Women’s Cal Cup, the Varsity 8+ took second place to Miami. Miami took first in 7:56.4, while the Tigers trailed by only 1.1 seconds with a time of 7:57.5. Davis pulled in a third place finish in 7:02.64 and were followed by Sacramento State (7:04.72), Santa Clara (7:15.85) and Rollins (7:43.01) taking the fourth, fifth, and sixth place spots. On Sunday Clemson will face Miami, Loyola Marymount, Navy, Louisville, and UCLA in the Grand Finals.

In the Novice 8+ race, Clemson rowing pulled in an exciting second place finish. The Tigers were trailing UC Berkley by a length and came back in the last 300 meters to trail by just 1.3 seconds finishing in 7:11.93. University of California Berkley won the race with a finishing time of 7:10.6. The Tigers were followed by Wisconsin in third in 7:23.4 and UC Irvine, 7:43.2, who took fourth. UC – Santa Barbara finished with a time of 7:48.03 and San Diego finished in 8:11.47. The Tigers will face Cal, Oregon State, Washington State, UCLA, and U of Washington in the Grand Finals.

The Tigers finished fourth in the Women’s Junior Varsity 8+ event. UC Berkley won the race with a time of 6:51.9. They were followed in by Southern California in 6:57.89 and Notre Dame in 7:08.99. Clemson had a finishing time of 7:15.21 and beat out Saint Joseph (7:22.61) and UC Irvine (7:42.35). The Tigers will compete against Notre Dame, Texas, Kansas State, Stanford, and UCLA in the Petite Finals.

“We did what we needed to do in the Varsity and Novice events to advance to the Grand Finals,” said head coach Susie Lueck. “We are focused on rowing our race in the Grand Finals tomorrow.”

The Tigers will return to the water on Sunday for the Grand and Petite Finals.