SAN DIEGO CREW CLASSIC RESULTS

The Trojan Navy raced at the San Diego Crew Classic on April 5 & 6 and in spite of rather extraordinary circumstances made quite a bit of history for the program.

USC boated two crews for the weekend's racing action, a novice crew and a varsity crew. The varsity crew competed for the California Cup.

Heats were held on Saturday and finals on Sunday.

In the novice eight event Coach Brooks Jones' crew struggled against solid competition and finished 6th out of 7 crews and did not race on Sunday.

Men's Collegiate Novice
Heat A
1  OSU 6:28.6
2  Washington 6:28.85
3  Orange Coast 6:40.41
4  UC Davis A 6:41.98
5  Notre Dame 6:57.96
6  USC 7:02.26
7  St. Marys 7:31.22

However, in the heats USC qualified for Sundays grand final in the varsity eight and defeated cross-town rival UCLA in the process. The varsity crew had qualified for the final of the California Cup for the first time in anyone's memory and were optimistic of its chances of winning against competition from UMass, Minnesota, Orange Coast College, Gonzaga and Western Washington.

USC were the first to launch for the final but did not realize that the race time had been incorrectly posted on the regatta information board until after it had left the shore. The race, in fact, was scheduled to go off at 2:20pm (instead of 2:30pm as incorrectly posted) and the error was not realized by race officials until after the crew had launched and disappointingly our crew missed its chance to race in the final.

Red-faced race officials quickly offered USC the opportunity to race in the final of the Copley Cup, the elite event of the regatta and this was accepted by USC Head Coach Gene Kininmonth and his crew. USC's competition now included the defending national champions California as well as Washington, Stanford, Temple, Oregon State and UC Davis. All crews are ranked in the top 20 in the country.

Result: Copley Cup Grand Final
1  Cal 5:56.79
2  Washington 5:57.98
3  OSU 6:09.39
4  Temple 6:09.87
5  UC Davis 6:17.55
6  Stanford 6:26.07
7  USC 6:29.89

The performance was most commendable by USC's varsity crew, especially since it had made up over four seconds on Stanford since the two crews last raced two weeks before. Furthermore, according to the regatta split times for the race, apart from the first 500m when USC faced especially
choppy water in its lane, the Trojan Navy rowed at a faster pace than Stanford for the remainder of the race. The race also marked USC's only appearance ever in the Grand Final of the Copley Cup in San Diego.

With the exposure to the elite competition, crew members now say they are especially looking forward to the PAC 10 Championships in five weeks where they will have another chance to race Stanford.