By Giancarlo Santoro, Sports Writer
The Lutes women’s rowing team claimed top five finishes in every event against a number of schools from Washington, Oregon and California this past weekend. Lake Natoma in Folsom, California hosted the two-day Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships.
The Pacific Lutheran University Novice 4 squad beat out Portland State (9:35.3), Chapman (9:47.1) and Washington State (9:59) Saturday with the quickest time of 9:18.6 to win the final after taking fifth in the second heat previously.
The Varsity 4 squad placed fifth place (8:22.9) behind Western Washington (7:50), Long Beach State (8:04.1), Occidental (8:05.1) and University of California-Irvine (8:06).
PLU closed out Saturday’s action by finishing fourth in the WV4 Petite final. UC Irvine took first in the event with a time of 8:35.5 while Portland finished second (8:42.1), Oregon third (8:54.3), Chico in fifth (9:06.4) and University of California-Santa Barbara in last (9:27.3).
Sunday gave the Lutes its second best finish of the weekend when PLU’s Varsity 8+ Petite team rowed to a time of 7:13.57, good for third place. UC Santa Barbara recovered from its sixth place finish to take first (6:59.7) while Occidental took second (7:12.82).
The Lutes final event of the year is on May 3 at Dexter Lake, Oregon, where they will compete in the Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference (NCRC) Championship Regatta.
