Windermere Classic: Pre-Race Analysis

It's been two weeks since the Windermere schedule was released, and now the races are upon us. I probably won't be getting race recaps online until after tomorrow's racing, so here's something to munch on in the meantime. Remember, rankings are getting thrown out the window when racing starts...

Men's crews:

#1 Washington

• Last week’s rank: #1
• They’re racing: #8 Wisconsin, #11 Trinity, #2 Stanford
• Washington is looking to test itself following the last two weeks’ victories over Western Washington University and Washington State University. Wisconsin and Trinity will present challenges to the Huskies, who may be looking ahead to avenging themselves against Stanford, who swept them last season.

#2 Stanford

• Last week’s rank: #7
• They’re racing: #20 George Washington, #8 Wisconsin, #1 Washington
• Following their second Copley Cup victory against Cal in two years, Stanford looks to repeat their win against Washington from last year at Windermere. First however, they need to get past GWU and Wisconsin.

#8 Wisconsin

• Last week’s rank: #8t (with Northeastern)
• They’re racing: #1 Washington, #2 Stanford, #4 Cal
• With the toughest opponents lined up on paper, Wisconsin should look to show its mettle against three top-five crews, possibly making a east coast vs. west coast statement in the process. The Badgers are no stranger to the Redwood Shores course, however, as they’ve raced here a handful of times in the recent past. Last year, Wisconsin lost to both Cal and Stanford in separate duals by about a length each time. With only three weeks having passed since their home waters melted, Wisconsin will look to hit the water in stride, taking as many shirts as they can in the process.

#11 Trinity

• Last week’s rank: #15
• They’re racing: #19 Oregon State, #1 Washington, #20 George Washington
• The Bantams were undefeated in 2005, winning the Henley Royal Regatta’s Temple Cup to cap off that season. Last year, they won the ECAC Invitational over Michigan, Holy Cross, and one of this year’s Windermere attendees, George Washington, finishing 13th in the final USRowing coaches’ poll. One of the bigger unresolved questions is how far Trinity could have gone in 2005 had they attended IRAs, but what we know right now is that Coach Gluckman has something good going on at Trinity.

#19 Oregon State

• Last week’s rank: #19
• They’re racing: #11 Trinity, #20 George Washington, Gonzaga
• It’s fair to say that Oregon State deserved not to get dropped after beating Purdue at San Diego but losing to then-#2 Cal and then-#7 Stanford. Now the Beavers are matched with a high-performing opponent in Trinity, an opponent of equal rank in GWU, and an up-and-coming west coast men’s program in Gonzaga. Oregon State will race Washington in Seattle the week following Windermere and will race Stanford in Eugene (no 2km courses near Corvallis) the week after that.

#20 George Washington

• Last week’s rank: #20
• They’re racing: #2 Stanford, #19 Oregon State, #11 Trinity
• Coming off a 5th place finish at ECACs last year, GWU has opened the season with losses to Columbia, Navy, and Penn. Last week at the GW Invitational, however, they beat Temple and Gonzaga while losing to Cornell and Michigan. This year also marks their debut as an EARC competitor, so they’ll be looking to gain experience against Stanford while setting their sights on Oregon State and Trinity, who won over them in last year’s ECAC grand final (GW placed 5th).

#4 California

• Last week’s rank: #2
• They’re racing: #8 Wisconsin (Sunday)
• While not strictly a Windermere competitor, Cal’s dual race against Wisconsin will receive the showcasing it deserves between two heavyweight men’s powers on Sunday. Cal didn’t fall far from their #2 ranking, as they did lead Stanford for 1500m before ultimately falling to the Cardinal, but there’s no doubt that last year’s IRA varsity champion will be a contender all season long. Cal will be rested, and Wisconsin will have raced Stanford and Washington already—the advantage may go to Cal on the basis of fresh legs.

Gonzaga

• Last week’s rank: NR
• They’re racing: UC-Davis, #19 Oregon State
• Gonzaga’s already beaten UCSD (won the SDCC Cal Cup two weeks ago) and Orange Coast to make their mark on west coast rowing this season. Now they’ll look to solidify their legitimacy this year with potential victories over a strong UC-Davis boat and ranked Oregon State.

Women's crews:

#5 California

• They’re racing: #16 Notre Dame, Louisville, #15 Tennessee
• It’s not Cal’s fault that their opponents, having been announced a few weeks ago, used to be ranked #13, #16, and #9 respectively in order of racing. Then again Cal was ranked #1 before San Diego, where they lost to then #8 USC. Expect Cal to come out with the intent to dominate and prove their mettle NCAA team championship defenders.

#7 Stanford

• They’re racing: #15 Tennessee , #16 Notre Dame, Louisville
• Note that Cal and Stanford share common opponents. This surely will play into prognosticator’s predictions for next weekend’s dual with Cal! When that schedule was made, Stanford was ranked #11, so if you look at the paragraph on Cal above, you’ll see that Stanford would have been racing right in their ‘tier,’ so to speak. Now the voters have put Stanford in at #7 and dropped their opponents, so the pressure’s on to prove that ranking. With this young boat, however, the sky’s the limit.

#8 UCLA

• They’re racing: #13 Virginia, #12 UCF, #16 Notre Dame
• Ah, the intrigue of rankings! UCLA was ranked #14 at the announcement of the racing schedule, and Virginia was ranked #2 (Notre Dame at #13), but now UCLA holds perceptual advantage over all its opponents, so like Stanford, the pressure will be on to show legitimacy. UCF will be an interesting opponent, having been unranked up until last week, when they upset then-#7 Virginia.

#12 UCF

• They’re racing: #14 Washington State, #8 UCLA, #19 Washington
• As mentioned, UCF was unranked when the polls came out before the order of racing, but the schedulers look like psychics here, with good match-ups between UCF’s recent ranking and their opponents (who have curiously and nearly switched rankings with each other since that order of racing poll). Look for UCF to continue their season’s undefeated streak, building off of their upset of Virginia last week.

#13 Virginia

• They’re racing: #8 UCLA, #19 Washington, #14 Washington State
• The Cavaliers dropped six places in the rankings after UCF beat them last week—and here they are this week sharing the same opponents. While this would have been a cakewalk on paper for the #2 Virginia that the schedulers saw when making the lineups, now Virginia is racing squarely in their tier and may also be racing to salvage their pride against UCF by winning out better against their common opponents.

#14 Washington State

• They’re racing: #12 UCF, #15 Tennessee, #13 Virginia
• While this would have looked like a heavy plate for a then-#18 ranked team (facing off against an unranked, a #9, and #2 teams respectively), WSU has earned respect from its solid home victory in adverse conditions over powerhouse Washington last week. Now, WSU is racing three teams in the immediate rankings about them, so they should be racing with nothing to lose.

#15 Tennessee

• They’re racing: #7 Stanford, #14 Washington State, #5 California
• Tennessee gets local opponents to bookend their schedule here, with a rising star in WSU right in the middle. The Lady Vols dropped three places after losing to Ohio State and Michigan (in freezing weather), so hopefully the California sunshine will bring out their boatspeed. Tennessee has been bested by Notre Dame much earlier this season, and the two are racing both Cal and Stanford this weekend—maybe there’s something to be compared there, maybe not.

#16 Notre Dame

• They’re racing: #5 California, #7 Stanford, #8 UCLA
• Ouch! Notre Dame takes on the top three ranked teams this weekend in blaze-of-glory style. Two weeks prior, this schedule looked slightly more manageable with then-ranked #1, #22, and #14 opponents (with ND ranked #13). Now, ND has dropped three places (despite not racing last week) and is facing more intimidating numbers. They’ll surely be looking to catch any one of their opponents unawares—a 14 second loss to Grand Valley State two weeks ago just might put some unsuspecting opponents at ease.

#19 Washington

• They’re racing: Louisville, #13 Virginia, #12 UCF
• It was a hard fall for Washington, dropping nine places and losing their lone first-place vote after their five-second loss to WSU last weekend in the windy, choppy Snake River conditions. Both the Apple State schools will be racing Virginia and UCF, so perhaps some measure of comparative speed can be gleaned from those margins. Otherwise, Washington’s twelve-place drop since the schedule was set will make expectations harder on them, though perhaps a vengeful weekend of victories may be just what Coach McElvaine’s crews need.

Louisville

• They’re racing: #19 Washington, #5 Cal, #7 Stanford
• Louisville gets three traditional Pac-10 rowing powerhouses in a row, and none of those opponents should take Louisville’s unranked status at face value—from all appearances, they’ve dropped from 16th to 17th to unranked status since their loss to Tennessee on March 24th, having raced no other crew in the intervening three weeks. Washington may end up with a big bullseye on their backs as the Cardinals’ first and perhaps most winnable race opponent on paper. Louisville missed out on the #20 ranking by seventeen votes, which should remind us all that rankings really don’t matter within a few places.

Arizona State

• They’re racing: Sonoma State
• A big welcome to ASU for making their first trip out to the Windermere Crew Classic—formerly a recreational club crew founded in 2001, the arrival of new coaching blood has helped ASU turn into a competitive club crew in about the span of nine months. ASU’s invitation to Windermere can only mean good things for them as another growing Pac-10 program rowing out in the desert. They were at San Diego two weeks ago, and they’ll be looking to show improvements to their speed. I suspect they are well-matched with Sonoma State on paper, so listen for that first 500m call.

Sonoma State

• They’re racing: Arizona State
• Sonoma State is no stranger to Windermere, having at least one team out here before, though it may have been a men’s crew. As the newest collegiate rowing club in the greater Bay Area, it’s only in its fourth year of existence, but SSU has already cut its teeth against high-level opponents at the San Diego Crew Classic. This is SSU’s only race, so look for them to get out fast and take the wind out of ASU’s sails.

Lightweights:

#1 Princeton

• They’re racing: #5 UCF, Loyola Marymount, #7 Stanford
• On paper, every race here is Princeton’s to lose. They’ve beaten UCF within the last week or so, and LMU would need to have proved itself to be in Princeton’s class for them to have a chance on paper. Stanford may be faster than it’s been any previous year, but they have yet to prove it this year against the likes of Princeton. Princeton’s light 2V will race the Cal open womens’ 3V and Arizona State, which should be interesting and fun races—Arizona State’s lightweight boat showed up at the San Diego Crew Classic, but they were not able to avoid the 30+ second victory that Stanford laid down, and the Princeton race against Cal’s 3V should be an intriguing case of racing up a level for the lights.

#5 UCF

• They’re racing: #1 Princeton, #7 Stanford, Loyola Marymount
• We know they lost to Princeton last week, but if it was an off day for the Golden Knights, look for some renewed focus. But as noted by JW Burk in Fight in the Dog, 20 seconds is a lot to make up in a week. Their race against Stanford should be a close one—Stanford may be suffering from less exposure to the good voters in the lightweight women’s poll, as lightweight women’s rowing is not so widely known out west. Look for UCF to race with something to prove.

#7 Stanford

• They’re racing: Loyola Marymount , #5 UCF, #1 Princeton
• Stanford sits at seventh place in the polls, probably a victim of both last season’s disappointment and not enough exposure this season. Well, it’s time to see if those year-round rowing conditions have helped rejuvenate the roster this year. The Cardinal can’t afford to look ahead to Central Florida—LMU was not among the Coggeshall Cup field in San Diego, which Stanford won easily. Having said that, UCF should definitely be within the Cardinal crosshairs, and if they have the speed, they’ll give Princeton a good run for their money, possibily swiping it from under the Tigers’ collective nose.

Arizona State

• They’re racing: Princeton L2V
• The ASU lights were in at San Diego’s Coggeshall Cup two weeks ago with Chapman and Stanford, but they’ll be looking to show improvements to their speed on a course slightly more sheltered from the elements (in the first thousand anyway). Credit ASU if they can stay composed and hang with Princeton.

Windermere Classic: Saturday Update

So the big question of the day is: did the midwest and southeast just blow out the west coast or did the west coast just manage to practice themselves into fair water complacency? It's a more the former than the latter, I'd have to presume, but I'm sure that the nasty weather suffered by the non-west-coasters has certainly helped them deal with the developing headwind. The flags at Redwood Shores are standing at full attention, and even inside the hotel, you can hear some of the gusts of wind. The good news is that both lanes are similarly affected. The bad news, at least for one crew, is that not all crews are trained to handle headwinds that push you down to port. C'est la vie. The morning rain has dried up and moved out east with the winds, but thunderstorms were reputed to be in the area. So far, so clear--just windy. The steering has been affected by the wind as well. We've seen one coxswain change lanes twice (ending up in their own lane), losing about a length and a half in the second change. We've also seen boats buffeted about by the wind--it's amazing how well you can see water thrown up by squared blades hitting water from a wind-affected set. The rates are telling, but only when paired with position data. Crews that rate highly have been known to blow out early or get killed by the headwind. Some crews row slightly higher and just get out faster then the other crews (a 29 is not a winning rating today...yet). It would take guts and a firm sense of your crew's capabilities to call up the rate much in this situation. For now, it seems that the big question can also be rephrased: who can row long and strong into a 17+ mph headwind? And to think the water was so lovely yesterday.

Windermere Classic: Pre-Sunday update

If there’s one take-home lesson from Saturday, beyond the obvious “rankings don’t matter” standby, it’s that rowing is an outdoor sport, and crews that can handle the elements better than others will always be better off than crews who can’t handle the elements. Yesterday, those elements were wind and rain, the former of which was the predominant factor in a lot of races. A lot of crews were seen (from our perch high up) coming out from behind the bridge (about 750m) at various rates, and the predominantly lower rates were definitely a result of the wind. It was painful (and somewhat amusing) to see boats emerge from under the bridge into the diamond area of the third 500m. Boats were definitely getting thrown around when the wind picked up—and not all the races were similarly affected. It’s been gusty here. Both men’s and women’s boats have been suffering mightily—at Redwood Shores, you can see three flagpoles with flags on them, and on Saturday afternoon, you could read each flag clearly in the wind. Having said that though, the wind was not as huge of a factor in the rainy, morning races, so the results are telling. On the NCAA women’s rowing side of things, one of the explanations behind the new speed behind the midwest and southeast regional schools is that various lineups have been retooled and tuned up. Injuries, seat racing, time trailing, and yes, even erg scores can all be used as metrics to evaluate potential varsity lineups. These were different lineups than those fielded to earn the rankings seen two weeks ago when the schedule was released—these were lineups meant to make an impact at this regatta. The results mean that this weekend’s losing crews will need to find that extra gear to make it to their conference championship medal stands, and ultimately to the national championship field. NCAA men’s basketball has Selection Sunday to determine the 65-team field that comprises the national champion selection process for that sport. One women’s team coach was heard to describe the Windermere regatta as the Selection Sunday of women’s rowing for the breadth of racing, indicative results, and national implication. Three races against geographically diverse opponents on a two-lane course: it doesn’t get much better for selectors than that. There’s also wind and future speed improvements to be made, but right now, I’d say the selectors have a pretty good idea of who should be going and who might not be going to Oak Ridge in May. Looking to the men’s crews, #1 Washington clearly showed its speed against Wisconsin and Trinity, pulling out early and maintaining speed to win comfortably. Stanford pulled another sprint-from-behind-to-win victory over Wisconsin, allowing many Cardinal fans to breathe. Was the race Wisconsin’s to give away, or did Stanford win this one with a calculated (perhaps too closely calculated) sprint? I have to admit: these down-to-the-wire calls are pretty fun for us observers. Speaking of those, Oregon State won a nail-biter over GWU yesterday as well, with two crews separated by less than a second all the way down the course to the 1500m mark, when a bobbled GWU stroke gave Oregon State the momentum to charge through for the win. Also, you might have thought that comparing splits between Washington vs. Wisconsin and Stanford vs. Wisconsin would yield some insight into Sunday’s event, but this headwind seems to have changed the whole course, so to speak. Everything went according to seed in lightweight women’s racing, except for #7 Stanford, pulling off an “upset” of #5 UCF. Early indications showed that Stanford is fast this year, however, and since this is the first real test between coasts, I suppose rankings updated after this weekend will be more valid. As this is being written Sunday morning before the racing starts (and not Saturday evening, like a professional and more well-rested journalist might do), I can tell you that the winds have died down a bit since yesterday afternoon, and it probably won’t be as wild. The sun, however, is beating down at full power...here come those mid-season unisuit tans. It’s the last day of racing, time to lay it all on the line!

Windermere Classic: Wrap-Up

Two days and eighty-eight collegiate races later, the collegiate rowing standings are not immediately clearer as to who is better than who, but the results are in, so let's take a look at what went down the 2km course at Redwood Shores. Considering only the varsity eights on the women’s side of things, both #8 UCLA and #14 WSU lost all their races while #13 Virginia and #16 Notre Dame won all their races. Virginia seems to have found a lineup that might propel them back to the upper-echelon status of their former #2 glory ahead of UCLA, Washington, and Washington State. Notre Dame has bested #5 Cal, #7 Stanford, and #8 UCLA and will definitely see newfound respect for its speed. Those are the clear winners and clear…well, crews who need to improve. In between, the picture gets pretty muddled, as we have a ring of death between four crews trumping each other (and this is just in the varsity eights), creating havoc with the idea of simple better-than-worse-than rankings. Let’s not even get into mitigating conditions (thanks to Saturday afternoon’s wind). The 2-1 crews are Tennessee, UCF, and Washington, and the 1-2 crews are Cal, Louisville, and Stanford. UW comes out on top of this middle group, while Cal, Tennessee, Stanford, and Louisville each have one victory over the other. UCF belongs somewhere here, as Washington beat them too, but UCF did not race either of those four other crews. Let’s not take away from the other boat classes though. Cal’s 2V and V4 swept their races, a feat only equaled by Virginia. It was encouraging that no school suffered a complete sweep in the six races comprising the 2V and V4 events, and this isn’t even getting to the novice eights results, which won’t be included in the NCAA selection criteria, I think. Looking at those novice results, one might expect continued growth of Virginia, Notre Dame, and Central Florida in women’s rowing, as they defeated Cal, UCLA, and WSU respectively. In a west-coast-only novice match up, the Washington women beat the Sacramento State women. UCLA and WSU do not have much time to reestablish their speed, as SIRA’s and the Pac-10s are coming up soon. Virginia and Notre Dame must establish their new lineups out east to move up in the ranking polls, which will undoubtedly play into the NCAA selectors’ minds. Given the clear different in this weekend’s performance versus past weeks’ results, the Cavaliers and Fighting Irish have got to be pleased that they have time to prove their speed against more opponents after coming away with 3-0 varsity records here. UCF, Cal, Tennessee, Washington, Stanford, and Louisville will be likewise looking to reestablish their speed for the season. Perhaps they should hope for some wild and windy weather…just for practice, just in case. It’s an outdoor sport. In the women’s lightweight eight events, Princeton showed their class by beating Stanford to the line in a straightforward victory: they got out fast, extended their lead in the second 500m, and held that lead through the second thousand, sitting on a comfortable lead in that second half of the race and giving up only a second and a half to win by close to three seconds. Still, Stanford managed to go a half second faster in the third 500m in a moderate headwind, and there’s probably more speed to come. For now, the #1 Tigers are the top boat. UCF and Loyola went down according to seed, as the top ten Golden Knights beat Loyola. The Lions come away with an 0-3 record against three nationally top-ten lightweight boats, which is nothing to hang their heads about, and they will have some time to chase that speed as their season rounds itself out in the next month or two. By the way, Princeton’s lightweight 2V, who made the trip out west, fell to Cal’s 3V yesterday in that blistering Saturday headwind. The Princeton lightweight 2V also raced today against the Cal lightweight eight and a composite Arizona State boat comprised of both lightweight and openweight rowers (several of their openweight rowers qualify as lightweight). Princeton won the race easily in the three-boat event: Cal started in “lane zero”, and between lanes zero and one, the trailing boat was to yield at the bridge to the faster crew. Cal got the worse of that deal and finished third behind Arizona State and Princeton. It was a good race, and both Cal and ASU be credited for hanging in this race. Cal’s lightweight squad has been hit hard by the injury bug, and their loss to Princeton here and to Stanford in the women’s lightweight fours event should serve to give the healthy rowers a goal to train towards. This was the first time that Arizona State rowed this composite lineup, so to be competitive with Cal was not a bad showing at all. Due to the unexpected nature of this race (the jamcotimes.com staff were not informed of the details), no splits data were available. The final race results were: Princeton in 7:19.5, ASU in 7:34.5, and Cal in 7:36.3. Finally, in the men’s division, Cal defeated Wisconsin in the varsity and freshman events, although the Badger second varsity boat stunned Cal with a strong first thousand meters from which the Bears tried to but could not recover from, preventing a sweep. Full credit to the Badgers for being able to row that kind of race on a little less than a month’s worth of water time. UC Davis showed its class in the WCC schools as it closed out a straightforward victory against local Santa Clara University. Gonzaga, one of this season’s premier mid-major (can I use that term in rowing?), west coast men’s rowing programs, was beaten by Oregon State with a slightly less than four second margin. With this weekend’s results, Oregon State shows that the program is still alive, but the Beavers will have to pick up some speed before their Washington dual next week in Seattle, their meet with Stanford and WSU in Eugene in two weeks, and Pac-10s next month. In the marquee matchup of the afternoon, the #1 Washington men’s varsity eight defeated the #2 Stanford men’s varsity, defending their #1 ranking and serving notice to the Cal Bears, who will face them in two weeks. Stanford, pushed to their limits against Wisconsin in that pummeling headwind yesterday, was unable to gain ground on the Huskies in any part of the race. The blistering last 500m Stanford speed that Wisconsin and Cal had fallen to was simply not enough, as Washington preempted Stanford’s sprint with ease, avenging last year’s Windermere regatta defeat at the hands of Stanford. With their #1 ranking looking very legitimate as the season progresses, Washington will be the crew to chase at the Pac-10 championships in mid-May. So that’s a wrap. The women’s NCAA scene has been jumbled up a bit, and the national rankings can find a little more legitimacy, such that fewer abnormal decisions will be made concerning NCAA championship field selections. Virginia and Notre Dame have left the west coast schools with a firm impression of the burgeoning speed out east of the Mississippi. The lightweight rankings have seen the rise of Stanford again, but Princeton’s star remains uneclipsed as they head back to the east coast with their #1 ranking intact. Washington’s men are at the top of their class, and it’s up to the rest of the field to match the Huskies’ speed by the IRA regatta. I hope you were able to watch the jamcotimes.com webcast live, and if you weren’t, the splits were fairly indicative of the crews’ ability throughout the race. Special thanks to Kent Mitchell, Jeff Shimbo, and the rest of the jamcotimes.com crew for their invaluable insight and their unique contribution to American rowing. Thanks also go to Stanford crew and Windermere Real Estate for hosting this truly national regatta. It’s been great to see crews from everywhere race and test their speed against competitors from opposite sides of the nation. Good luck to the crews who raced here this weekend: we’ll be watching for improvement in your respective championships!