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Men’s Crew Team Captures First-Ever Cal Cup
April 2, 2007
Coach Zach Johnson’s varsity eight made history Sunday at the annual San Diego Crew Classic, winning the grand final of the Cal Cup for the first time ever in a stirring blanket finish with UCLA and UC Davis.
The Tritons, who won their Saturday heat to qualify for a shot at the crown, started slowly and were anywhere from five-to-six seats down early in the race. But, as planned, they kicked it into gear at the midway point, caught UCLA with 500 meters to go and outsprinted the Bruins and Aggies to the wire.
"We knew after the heats that everyone was going to throw everything at us in the first 500 meters,” Johnson said. “We just wanted to maintain contact through the first half of the race and start making our move at that point. We wanted to have a ‘negative time,’ that is a faster second half than first half, and we were able to do that.”
UCSD’s wining time was 6:30.60, less than half a second better than UCLA with UC Davis another second and a half to the rear. Coxswain Joe Gram guided the crew which included Derek Huffman, Brenden Carriker, Tyler Sutterley, Shawn Hay, Gilbert Collins, Darren Von Platen, Ryan Andre and Michael Zurko.
Johnson said winning the Cal Cup brought a lot more recognition to the program than he had even imagined. But he said that conference and national championships continue to be the team’s focus.
“Winning the Cal Cup was one of our objectives and it was one of the biggest wins in school history, but we know that it's not going to mean nearly as much if we don't finish the year off and do well at our championship events,” he said. “We're going to be seeing a lot of these teams again down the road."
Johnson’s rowers will be idle this week before vying with San Diego State University and University of San Diego for the San Diego City Championship, April 14.
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