San Diego Crew Classic, 2013: Recap and Review

Dramatic skies over Mission Bay (Photo: B. Kitch) 
The 40th edition of the Crew Classic in San Diego was all about depth. There was no clearer example of this than the performance of the USC Trojans, who swept the women's NCAA DI events and set a new standard for performance on Mission Bay. Cal and Virginia also posted very strong results, and we'll be expecting their speed to continue to increase as we draw closer to championship racing season. Also as expected, Washington and UCLA were also very much part of the conversation—this looks to be another very strong year in the Pac-12 (perhaps the best ever depth in the conference, from top to bottom).

On the men's side, Cal was dominant—another very deep team with a ton of upside coming from strong sophomore and junior classes, including 2013 Crash-B winner Christian Kader and emerging talent Carter Crowe. The Cal men's second varsity posted the second third fastest time of the day on Sunday (behind only the Copley Cup-winning Golden Bear varsity eight and the Stanford varsity crew*), while their B entry in the men's 2V final took second place in the event. In the collegiate club events, USCB had a great regatta, winning both the men's Cal Cup and the Secretary of the Navy Cup (men's lightweight eight) events within 20 minutes, while the UCSB varsity women took second in the women's collegiate DII/DIII /Club event, and won the novice eight at the DII/DIII/Club level as well—a testament to the increasing depth and competitiveness of the Gauchos' program.

Miami took top honors in the women's Cal Cup, ahead of local favorites USD and British Columbia, respectively.**

At the junior level, there were a number of closely contested finals, setting up grudge matches at the regional and national level in the coming weeks and months. Marin's junior men reasserted themselves after being beaten in the varsity eight for the first time in roughly three years by Long Beach Juniors at the Faultline Faceoff in Oakland last month. In San Diego, however, Marin once again looked like the team to beat, posting an impressive 6:01.56 to win the event, with LBJC taking second place just under six seconds back, and Oakland Strokes a length back in third. The Marin junior women enjoyed similar success in the varsity eight, edging defending national champs Oakland into second place by just over a length to take the title. Marina Aquatic Center also posted an impressive result, finishing just 0.26 seconds back of Oakland.

As usual, the masters events at the regatta were a lot of fun, with a number of Olympians in action battling it out for bragging rights in the beer garden.

Notes: Our Video Of The Week is forthcoming, and you can view full results from the massive weekend of racing in San Diego on the official website of the Crew Classic.

*Update: The times posted to the Crew Classic website for the Copley Cup are currently incorrect—here are the "more correct" times thanks to row2k:
http://row2k.com/news/news.cfm?ID=79522#.UWNX-6vF2JU

**Updated & corrected 4/9/2013

-RR

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