San Diego, Ca- Coming of a tough weekend at the Pac-10 Challenge the Bruins were determined to improve on last weeks results.

The Varsity 8 had three changes to its line-up looking for more speed in the second thousand. In the Saturday heat the Bruins drew USD who had beaten them by 7 seconds a few weeks earlier as well as Colorado, Cal lightweights, UC- Irvine and Washington St.. UCLA was down early but walked though the field in the middle 1000 meters and finished just ¾ of a length behind San Diego. “I thought for a crew that had practiced only once together they showed good poise and a much improved second thousand,” said Coach Mokha. However, in Sunday’s final the Bruins were unable to improve on their heat performance and gradually fell of the pace, finishing 6th as UC-San Diego won its second Cal cup in three years.

The second varsity was sitting in qualifying position at the 1000 meter mark of their heat but faded as UC-Irvine grabbed the third qualifying spot along with Washington and Harvard. In Sunday’s petite final the Bruins raced most of the way down the course in 5th place when they put on an impressive sprint that brought them through Colorado and within one second of Santa Clara for the third position.

The second novice 8 event had three crews scratch (Cal, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara) leaving the event to a dual between UCLA and Orange Coast College. About 500 meters into the race the Bruins caught a boat stopping crab that made the rest of the race a row over.

The Bruin top Novice crew had a seven boat heat with the top two spots advancing to the grand final (Stanford, U of British Columbia) and the next two going to the petites. The Bruins fought hard having their best race of the year but could not overtake Michigan or San Diego and placed 5th in the heat. The Crew Classic did not offer a 3rd level final this year so the novices were done on Saturday.

The Bruins next compete at the Newport Invitational on April 18.