Rowing team ready for race against USC

Despite having a surprising season that has exceeded
expectations, the UCLA women’s rowing team seems content upon
being the number two team in Southern California for the time
being.

That’s because even though the Bruins will showcase their
skills in the final regular season meet this Saturday against No. 7
USC, they know that beating a top-ten school in their second year
as a varsity program is probably still out of their reach.

“We’re complete underdogs, and we’re just
going to have fun with that,” UCLA head coach Amy Fuller
said. “Our goal is really to have the best 2000-meter race
we’ve had this year and hopefully that will keep us in the
race for a while.”

Just last weekend, the Bruin varsity eight boat used a similar
strategy against the University of Minnesota, another rising
national power and matched the Golden Gophers for the first 750m of
the race. The Bruins readily admit, however, that USC might be on a
different level.

“They should win. They have the resources, the athletes
and the power,” Fuller said. “This year, our times have
consistently been 15-20 seconds slower than
(USC’s).”

The Trojans’ success this year places them in the upper
echelon of women’s rowing, and rightfully so. They already
have the full complement of twenty scholarships that the NCAA
allows for women’s rowing ““ compared to UCLA’s
two ““ and their head coach Kelly Babraj is a veteran who has
won two Pac-10 championships in her career.

However, that success came when she was the head coach of
UCLA’s women’s program in the late ’80s and early
’90s, just before it was cut by the athletic department in
1991. According to Zenon Babraj, current director of USC rowing and
former UCLA men’s rowing coach, there aren’t any
lingering hurt feelings.

“It’s been a long time since that happened, and now
that we’re at USC, we’re focusing on building our
program to compete for NCAA championships,” Zenon said.

For UCLA, the focus is also on the future. This weekend’s
meet means more for the future of the Bruin program than it does
for the present because the women’s novice eight boat is
actually a slight favorite in their race (and the only Bruin
favorite in any race). This bodes well for the squad because many
of the current novice eight rowers will be competing for spots on
the varsity eight boat next year.

“We put this dual meet together because we’re
excited about the future of the program, and we know eventually it
will be a great rivalry,” Fuller said.

For some Bruin rowers, this weekend’s meet brings an added
edge of excitement because they have grown up with the UCLA-USC
rivalry and are excited to finally take part in it.

“You always hear about the rivalry on the news,”
novice eight boat coxswain and Pomona resident Arianna Combs said.
“(Next year), we’re going to be the ones telling the
traditional stories, and if we win this year, it will provide next
year’s eights something to set their sights on.”

This weekend’s dual match also has important implications
for the yearlong race between UCLA and USC for the Lexus Gauntlet
trophy. At the end of the year, the trophy is presented to the
school who has amassed the most points, which are given out every
time one school beats the other in any sport. This weekend’s
meet has five points up for grabs, with UCLA currently leading the
total point score 55-50. Rowing is the last sport in which the
points have yet to be awarded, so a UCLA victory could clinch the
trophy for the Bruins.

“It would be great to win that,” Fuller said.
“But my team’s going to go out and give 100 percent
whether there’s a Lexus trophy or not.”