San Pedro, CA- In the Bruins final race of the fall season the UCLA ‘B’ entry won the Varsity 8 event besting crews from Loyola Marymount, USC and a UCLA ‘A’ entry. The Bruin B entry navigated the waters of the Los Angeles harbor while passing all three crews in front of them to win in a time of 15:24 with USC second,15:32 followed by LMU, 16:03 and UCLA A, 16:17. “Once we got down to base rate off our start we began to move, stated Andrew Venardi. Then we were able to pass SC and the rest of the field.”

The Trojans made a good push in the last 1000 meters but could not catch the Bruins.

UCLA used the middle of the 5k race to assert themselves and take control of the race while the UCLA A boat battled with LMU for much of the 5k race for 3rd. “We were very aggressive in the first half of the race and held LMU off,” stated Darius Faizi. The Lions were able to get passed UCLA in the last 1000 meters to secure third.

The novice 8 event was 3k with 2 entries from UCLA and one boat each from USC and LMU. The Lions of LMU bested the field winning in 15:10 followed by USC and the 2 UCLA entries.

“It is always nice to get a win, said coach Paul Mokha, but I didn’t see the technique nor boat speed I was expecting out of our crews. We will have to raise our standards a bit when we start up again in January.”