Huskies grab Windermere Cup

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, May 1, 2004

SEATTLE – Coach Bob Ernst is adamant that nothing less than a national championship is acceptable for his University of Washington men’s varsity eight.

The Huskies, ranked third in the nation this week after toppling powerful, formerly second-ranked Cal the previous Saturday, are deep, talented and strong. That much is undisputed.

That’s why he was almost tepid following Washington’s impressive victory over No. 7 Navy and an Italian national team in the Men’s Windermere Cup Saturday at the Montlake Cut. The goal is the national title, still a month away.

“I think they’re making decent progress,” Ernst said after the Huskies polished off the Midshipmen by nearly seven seconds and the Italians by 20. “It’s the first time we’ve raced this lineup. They’re making progress. They’ve got a month.”

It’s been a trying season for the UW rowers. Even though the Huskies return six rowers from last season’s crew, Ernst has found it necessary to make constant lineup changes following a season-opening third-place finish in the final of the San Diego Crew Classic.

Ernst has done so much shuffling of personnel between the varsity boat and the junior-varsity boat that it’s left some rowers uncertain from week to week. Even last week’s win at arch-rival Cal, a dual regatta on which the Huskies place more importance than any other during the year, was followed by one change in the varsity-eight shell.

“It’s been rough on the guys, but everybody’s been real goods sports,” said senior Sam Burns, an O’Dea High School who mans the No. 2 seat.

Certainly, this is a stronger, more synchronized eight than what showed up in San Diego. The Huskies and Middies were virtually even halfway through the 2,000-meter race, but Washington turned on the jets and was nearly two lengths up at the finish line.

“At the 1,000-meter mark, we were half a length behind,” Navy coach Rick Clothier said. “That’s still OK, so we’re in the zone. The problem was that we were rowing a bit higher than we wanted to. Our race plan called for our stroke rate to be at 36 (strokes per minute) and we were rowing 38 … Washington is rated third and they’re at least that.”

Washington also won the Women’s Windermere Cup for the 11th time in the last 13 years with an open-water triumph over Italy, which finished six seconds back. UCLA was third, 16 seconds behind Washington.

The margin of victory may have been a surprise to some because the crew is gunning for the Pacific-10 Championships in two weeks. Therefore, having already tapered off three days prior to last week’s Cal Dual, the Huskies cracked the whip in the days leading up to Windermere.

And it won’t stop for a while.

“We had to do a lot of hard work, work through next week and then taper for the Pac-10s,” first-year women’s coach Eleanor McElvaine said. “We have to have at least two weeks of really hard work in order to have any type of tapering.”

JV races: The UW men’s junior varsity eight took home the Men’s Erickson Cascade Cup by beating Oregon State by nearly nine seconds. Washington State came in third, 24 seconds behind Washington.

The UW women’s JV eight lost to Washington State by nearly four seconds to lose their first Women’s Erickson Cascade Cup since 1990.

“My hat is off to Washington State,” McElvaine said. “They have real tough kids and they were down, but they didn’t get discouraged. They fought back. We need to be looking at our players and make sure we have the toughest players in the boat. It’s not acceptable to have someone come back and walk through you.”

Washington won nine of the 10 races in which it participated.

Huge crowd: Favorable weather was a factor in the size of the crowd, which Ernst estimated at about 40,000.

“I’ve seen every one of these Windermere Cups and this is by far the biggest crowd we’ve ever had,” Ernst said. “I’ve never seen a crowd anything close to that and they were very verbal, vocal and all that stuff.”