The UC Irvine Men’s Rowing team raced the Orange Coast College Pirates at the Collins Cup in Newport Beach on Saturday, April 15. The tough slate of races allowed the Anteaters to show off their improvement and measure themselves against another crew in the run up to regionals.
The novice crew’s first race of the day was the coxed four, a smaller boat where technique and cohesion matter more than the more popularly raced eight. This race was a blowout for the Anteaters, who crossed the line a full 30 seconds before their competition.
While Coast did not put their best rowers into their four and Irvine placed members of their top eight in the boat, both crews were inexperienced in the category. The large margin of victory was a testament to the cohesion of the UCI novice crew and their stability under pressure.
When the time came to race the eights, Coast showed why they are one of the top novice teams in the country.
Irvine lost the race of the first novice eight by 24 seconds and lost the second novice eight by 38 seconds. For context, the varsity race between the programs about 20 minutes beforehand came down to a difference of 0.5 seconds.
The large differences in the novice races resulted largely from two factors: experience and morale.
Most rowers for Coast rowed in high school, while none of the current UCI novices rowed before September of last year. This not only allowed for Coast’s greater technique in making the boat move, but also set up a base of rowing fitness that was hard for UCI to match in such a short time.
Morale also plays a massive role in rowing, as the crew in the lead has a view of all the other crews, while the losing crew is in the dark. This tends to have a large impact on inexperienced racers as they feel the race is slipping away from them, causing them to row more frantically or lose hope and reduce their effort.
Both of these factors lead to the lopsided victories that Coast enjoyed, but there was still significant improvement from the novice eights. The improvement mainly resided in their cohesion and boat integrity.
The boats, while demoralized and sloppy, were still able to row together in the style that UCI assistant coach Carlos Dominguez wanted them to. While this likely won’t be enough to overcome Coast this season, it does bode well for their performance at the regional Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship (WIRA) and the national American Collegiate Rowing Association Championship (ACRA).
Benjamin Hendricks is a Sports Staff Writer. He can be reached at bahendr1@uci.edu.