Cal women's rowing celebrates second-straight Pac-12 title
The Bears were dominant at the 2016 Pac-12 Rowing Championship, taking three of four events to take their second consecutive title.
— Cal Women's Crew (@CalWCrew) May 15, 2016
Stanford held a close second throughout, finishing with a total 35 points to the Bears' 45. Head coach Al Acosta couldn't hide his nerves during the close rivalry races.
"I'm just thinking about holding down my breakfast, making sure it doesn't come out when they're racing," said Acosta.
Acosta and the rest of the coaches and fans can't see part of the race from the beach, making things a little more stressful when the highly-anticipated Stanford-Cal varsity eight race came around.
"The final race, we felt it was going to be us, and Stanford pushing all the way down," said Acosta. The Cardinal gave their rival a close race last year, too, so the team made some adjustments. "You never know if it's going to work until it's race day. But as I was listening to the announcer call the race it sounded like things were working out."
Cal defeated their rival by just .8 seconds with a 6:22.0 time.
.@CalWCrew defends the WV8+ title! pic.twitter.com/cgbYJyqSVS
— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) May 15, 2016
After that, the Bears could celebrate.
"So proud to be a part of this wonderful team," said varsity eight rower Kendall Chase. "We're just one giant family. It's so nice to come out here and just do it for each other and just go after it."
But, Cal's season isn't over. They'll return to Lake Natoma for the NCAA Championships on May 27-29.
"The team's great. They love to pull for each other on the water and off the water," said Acosta. "We're going to celebrate by taking tomorrow morning off and starting practice tomorrow afternoon."