May. 2, 2005

Lake Natoma, CA-This Saturday and Sunday, women's rowing competed in Sacramento at the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships. The varsity and novice teams, with a combined roster of 15, competed in four events: novice-8, varsity-8, novice-4 and varsity-4.

The varsity team took home the gold medal in the varsity-4 event with a time of 7:37. They beat out boats from Gonzaga (7:39), Orange Coast College (7:54), Santa Clara (7:58), UC Santa Barbara (8:20), Lewis and Clark (8:29), and Evergreen State (8:51). This is the first time in history that Saint Mary's has ever placed first in the WIRA Championship in that event. The varsity-8 placed 11 out of 19, posting a time of 7:33.9. They placed ahead of boats from Santa Clara (7:32), Lewis and Clark (7:38), University of Oregon (7:39.8) and UC San Diego (7:42).

In other Saint Mary's rowing action, the novice-4 placed second out of 18, falling just three seconds short of the UC San Diego (8:02) boat and finishing with a time of 8:05. The novice-8 posted a time of 7:29, placing 16 out of 21.

Head Coach Pasha Spencer stated, "The team doubled and tripled up to cover all of the races. Four of the novices raced three times on Saturday, that is quite a load and quite an accomplishment."

The Gaels return to the water for one final weekend of racing on May 14th.