No. 11 men’s rowing hosted a variety of different crew teams in the Stanford Invitational at Redwood Shores over the weekend, welcoming No. 20 Oregon State, Wisconsin, No. 2 Washington, Santa Clara, Cal and Hobart in the two-day regatta. The Cardinal’s three competing boats on Saturday earned victory in the Invitational with the varsity eight beating the Hobart Statesmen by recording the third-best time (5:43.44) of the weekend in the win.
Friday’s opening day of action saw the Cardinal boats squared off against Oregon State in which the varsity eight came away with a victory when Stanford cleared the open-water course in 6:01.2, eclipsing the Oregon State boat by three seconds.
The novice eight fell short in their race, however, and fell to the Beavers by three seconds, finishing in 6:15.6.
During the second varsity eight’s race with Oregon State, the wind on the water caused the boats to move out of position, and the oars collided with each other during the final stretch of the race. Officials determined that the boats would replay the race on the second day of the regatta, and during the re-row, Stanford fell to Oregon State by eight seconds, finishing with a time of 6:11.7.
On the second day of the regatta, the team had a difficult challenge ahead of them as the first races of the day were against the No. 2 ranked Washington men’s team. Stanford boats ultimately lost all three of the races against the dominant Huskies with the first varsity eight finishing in 5:53.6 and still losing by 15 seconds.
The final races of the day were against Hobart. The varsity eight came back from the prior defeat with a strong performance and claimed victory with a time of 5:43.44. The freshman eight also came up with a win, finishing in an impressive 5:57.3 and beating Santa Clara by 16 seconds.
According to head coach Craig Amerkhanian, the annual Stanford Invitational is an excellent opportunity for the Stanford boats to get practice against a variety of competitive schools.
“This is always a great event and we thank all the programs for making this special for the student-athletes,” said Amerkhanian. “It was another good performance from the varsity eight and it was nice to see our freshman eight take advantage and finish strong with a sub-six-minute race to close the regatta.”
Following this regatta, the men’s rowing team will look to finish strong as it reaches the end of the spring season. The Cardinal will compete next in the Big Row against Cal on April 29 once again at Redwood Shores.
Contact Bobby Pragada at bpragada ‘at’ stanford.edu.