February 8, 2003

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - After spending many arduous hours training to compete, the rowers from Santa Clara were ready to finally get a chance to race, even if it was only on the rowing machines. The twenty-nine Bronco athletes who competed in the 17th Annual Golden State Indoor Rowing Championships in Sacramento, seized the opportunity and made a strong early season statement.

This was the second year that Juan Perez, a Junior, competed at this event. "The hard thing about Indoors is that you have all those people around you and so the adrenaline is really high" Perez commented. "At the start you have to force yourself to slow down and stick to your race plan or else you'll be dead by the halfway mark."

Displaying his maturity as a rower, Juan turned out consistent splits and convincingly defeated the rest of the field in the Men's Lightweight event, with a time of 6:36.5. "When I finished I just saw black spots so I didn't know what my time was. I knew I had met my goal of sub 6:40, but I never expected it would be a 6:36!"

Overall, he was very surprised with his time, and confident about where the Men's Varsity team is at this point in the season.

Another standout performance was turned in by Sophomore Laura Hellenthal who finished 3rd in the open women's event, with a time of 7:31 over the 2,000 meter distance. Her performance, along with Juan's were two of the twenty-one personal records set by the Broncos at the event.

Both the men and women's squads will return to Sacramento in March to compete against Sacramento State in a dual match scheduled for the morning of the 8th. The event will take place at Lake Natoma near Sacramento.