As the UCLA rowing team’s Varsity Eight entered last weekend’s NCAA Championships, there was the faintest glimmer of hope that they would post a top-five finish in the event.
It would have been an outstanding upset for the No. 12 Bruins to place ahead of a bevy of elite programs on the East Coast.
But it didn’t happen.
“They were riding really well in the heat,” UCLA coach Amy Fuller Kearny said. “In the semifinals they went out really hard. When they started to get passed, they kind of mentally shut down a little bit.”
UCLA had its fastest race on Friday, running a 6:39.28 to place third, behind California and Washington State.
Saturday, UCLA posted a 6:43.1 finish, good enough for sixth place and a berth in Sunday’s Petite Final, reserved for the seventh through 13th-place finishers.
The Bruins finished sixth again Sunday with a 6:56.32 finish, ranking them 12th in the Varsity Eight for 2006.
The program is only five years old, yet the Bruins have gone to the NCAA Championships for the last two years. The bar has already been raised for next year.
“Hopefully next year we’ll be in the top 10,” said Fuller Kearny.
On paper, the Bruins are definitely set to improve next year. Only two members of the team are seniors, leading Fuller Kearny to expect better things to come.
“Overall, the resounding thing in my mind is the team and that it wasn’t an individual performance,” Fuller Kearny said. “Everyone pushed the varsity. That and with this team makeup, (they) were able to make it to such a high level.”