Crew's moment of truth

By Mary Anne Sunseri

For the men's and women's crew teams, this weekend marks the most important races of the year. Five months of waking up at 5:15 a.m., practicing six days a week, and sacrificing much of their college life comes down to only these three days.

On Friday, Santa Clara Crew will race in the West Coast Conference Championship. For the men's team, who are not officially apart of the WCC, this is a race for pride, not trophies. But for the women, it is. Saturday and Sunday mark the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships, where Santa Clara will go up against not only WCC schools Loyola Marymount, University of San Diego, St. Mary's and Gonzaga, but also many other teams from West Coast.

Both teams have had rocky seasons this year. Despite the loss of last year's senior class, the men's crew team started out the year strong with a first place at the Head of the San Joaquin Regatta on Oct. 3 and the Head of the Lagoon Regatta on Nov. 14.

"Things were looking really well. We lost a few seniors from last year, so that kind of hurt the team in the beginning, but we had a great group of novices from last year who really stepped up to fill some of those big shoes," senior varsity co-captain Ned Matthews said.

Near the middle of the season, the team's performance began to lack. Santa Clara placed seventeenth at the San Diego Crew Classic.

"We don't normally race poorly, but it's not normally our best race either," senior varsity co-captain Tony Johnson said. "We didn't race as well as we could have."

Since that race, the team has regrouped and refocused. At the Newport Regatta on April 16, the team raced fourth in its heat but came away with a win in the petite finals. With that strong comeback, the team is hoping to win matches this weekend.

"This group has come a long way this year and has learned many lessons along the way," Head Coach Tony Barcia said. "We'll need to draw on all of those experiences and on all the training we have put in if we are going to be in the hunt this weekend."

The women's team has also had some rough edges to smooth out. The season started out slow as the team reorganized after losing strong seniors. At the WCC Challenge the weekend of March 20, the team fell to last place. However, in the Blue Heron Regatta at Humboldt State on April 9, Santa Clara posted first place wins in the Varsity Eight as well as the Novice Four, ranking them third overall at the regatta.

"I think there's been a lot more focus especially after the win at Humboldt. The girls just come back extremely focused at every practice knowing what they have to do," Assistant Coach Matthew Riley said.

With the season's early losses behind them, the girls continue to press forward.

"I think one of our biggest strengths is we always push each other," Senior Varsity Captain Laura Hellenthal said. "We never settle. We know we can do better and we push ourselves further."

Both teams are in an upswing and have hopes to perform well this weekend. To them, it is the culmination of all of their hard work, especially those who have been on the team for almost four years.

"This is really the last race for a lot of people and I think everyone's willing to put everything out on the line this weekend," third year rower junior Kristin Siem said.

Both the WCC and WIRA Championships take place in Lake Natoma, Calif. Both teams are confident they'll perform well.

"If we perform the way I know we can perform, the way we all know we can perform, we just may finish on the medal stand, which would be a huge accomplishment given all that we've gone through this season," junior varsity Justin Ungson said.