USC travels to Head of the American Regatta


By
 in ,

On Saturday, the USC women’s rowing team will compete in the 2015 Head of the American Regatta, in Gold River, California.

The one-day event hosted by the Sacramento State Aquatic Center will take place on Lake Natoma at the Nimbus Flats State Park.

The 5,000-meter course starts just south of Rainbow Bridge and continues down to the finish line situated near the Nimbus Dam. Competitions range from the junior-level to the elite-level.

The Head of the American Regatta is the Women of Troy’s second rowing competition of the season.

The first was last week’s renowned 51st annual Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston. It featured two days of intense competition among teams from all over the globe including the U.S. National team and a couple of German national boats.

In its first appearance since 2003, the women’s rowing team came home with a respectable 17th place finish (with a time of 17:06.610) in the Women’s Championship eights, which featured 32 boats.

This weekend, the Women of Troy will represent USC in Women’s Collegiate twos (Event 21), fours (Event 47) and eights (Event 39) events. The 10:45 a.m. twos race will feature two USC boats among a strong line-up of Stanford, Loyola, Berkeley, Chico  and University of Washington. Later, the Women of Troy will participate in the 1:45 p.m. eights event.

In it, they will battle for first place against Chico, Loyola, Mills, Sacramento State, Saint Mary’s, UC Davis, Berkeley, Washington and reigning champion, Stanford.

Finally, at 3 p.m., three USC boats will take part in the fours event, which will include Berkeley, UC Davis, Saint Mary’s and Mills College.

Last year, Stanford took home the gold, with a time of 17:56.0, in an eights competition that did not feature USC. In their quest to dethrone Stanford, the Women of Troy will have to watch out for Berkeley. Cal placed first at last week’s eights in the Head of the Charles Regatta, besting USC’s seventeenth place effort by over a minute.

Conversely, the Women of Troy will have to do their best to avoid getting upset in the twos and fours events, which they swept in 2014, with times of 20:02.0 and 18:51.0, respectively.

The Head of the American marks the last competition of the calendar year for the USC women’s rowing team, who is led by 14th-year head coach Zenon Babraj.

The Women of Troy’s next official meet will be the 2016 Longhorn Invitational in Austin, Texas, on March 25-26.