REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – The Santa Clara University women's rowing program traveled a short distance up the 101 to race UC Santa Barbara in the Port of Redwood City over the weekend.  While the weather was nice and the water stayed flat, the Bronco women unfortunately dropped all three races (Varsity 8, Novice 8 and JV4) to Santa Barbara.

April is high-time for both the men's and women's teams, who will both be in action this upcoming weekend. The men will return to Redwood Shores to compete in the Stanford Invitational, while the women will race Mills College and Sonoma State in Petaluma.

"This should be a good race as our times have been very competitive with what Mills and Sonoma have put down so far this season," said Santa Clara head women's rowing coach John Wojtkiewicz, talking about the coming weekend. "I am looking forward to some very competitive racing.  As this is our last dual race before the WCC Championships, we will also be looking to get some of our momentum back and pushing for a time that is closer to 7:15."

The final time of the SCU women's Varsity 8 boat against UCSB was 7:31, about 16 seconds off the pace SCU is hoping for at the WCC's at the end of the month. A slow start by the Broncos Saturday allowed UCSB to eventually brake into open water and win by 10.6 seconds.

"The actual times are on the slow side because of the tide and the wind," said Wojtkiewicz about his team's three races against UCSB. The Novice 8 was a three-boat race.  In this race Santa Clara raced against "A" and "B" novice crews from UCSB.  Once off to a clean start, the Santa Clara crew was in a hard race for second as the "A" crew from UCSB established an early lead.  Through the half-way mark Santa Clara and UCSB "B" were fighting for the advantage, but Santa Clara was unable to hold through the third 500 and dropped back, finishing at 7:54.

The final race of the day was the JV4+, an exhibition for both team's spares to get some racing experience. In just the second time this particular SCU crew had rowed together, their time was better than anticipated, but UCSB won by 22 seconds with a time of 8:19.