Last weekend, the top-ranked Virginia Women's Rowing team traveled to the West Coast for the San Diego Crew Classic. As we mentioned last week before the meet, the Cavaliers were up against some steep competition in San Diego.
While it certainly wasn't the dominating performance from the previous weekend at the Oak Ridge Invitational - and no one could have really expected it to be - Virginia took care of business with their first Varsity Four winning the Karen Plumleigh Cortney Cup.
All three of Virginia's top boats - the first and second Varsity Eights and the first Varsity Four - advanced to the grand finals on Sunday with qualifying heats on Saturday. The first Varsity Four and second Varsity Eight came in first in their respective heats. The first Varsity Eight came in second in its qualifying heat.
In the grand finals, the first Varsity Four came in first, edging out Washington State by four seconds. The first Varsity Eight came in second to USC - the same squad to beat them in the qualifiers - by less than three seconds. The second Varsity Eight came in third behind UCLA and Washington - missing second place by a mere 0.12 seconds.
With those finishes, the Cavaliers retained their #1 ranking, receiving 21 of the 25 first place in today's USRowing/CRCA Women's Collegiate Rowing Poll. They're rejoined this week by the men's lacrosse team as two Virginia sports to be ranked at the top of their respective polls.
Up next for the crew team is the U.Va. Invitational at Lake Monticello next weekend. Action starts at 9am on Saturday, April 14th.