March 7, 2008

Santa Clara, Calif. - This weekend marks the official start to the 2008 Santa Clara Men's Crew 2K sprint season. Starting off the season is a doubleheader with the Sacramento State Dual on Saturday, March 8th and the Davis Invitational March 9th.

The men's squad has been training for the last six months and is looking its strongest in years. Last year, Sacramento won the dual with a time of 6:20.6, besting the SCU varsity boat by seven seconds. This year, the varsity men are ready to change that. The varsity team has integrated the strong novice team from last season into the varsity boats and the team has been performing better than ever on the water.

The dual will also be the first race of the year for this year's men's novice who have been showing considerable speed during their practices under head coach Matt Pinschmidt. The Sunday races at the Davis Invitational will have a larger field of competition including UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Cal lightweights, and Cal maritime. The races start at 8:00 a.m. with the last race finishing at noon.