Championship Weekend: Recap and Review

Washington takes the MV8 at Pac12s (Photo: © Madeline Davis)
Conference championship weekend has come and gone, and the invitees for the 2013 collegiate national championships have been announced. Before the racing last weekend, we feel back into our old habit of shooting our mouths off about who might be taking top honors across many of the major conferences—and now, it's time to see just how those picks and predictions turned out.

Pac12s

We successfully picked all the medalists for the men's and women's varsity eights, though there we two notable upsets—the California women, whom we picked for silver, were overtaken by Washington, while the Cal men couldn't hold off a hard charging Stanford crew for the silver medal—both Golden Bear crews had to be contented with bronze. As for the second varsity eight, Cal took first ahead of USC (as we predicted), but UCLA fell to fourth behind Washington, while in the varsity four, the Bruins sprinted into second behind our pick to win, Cal, and again Washington made the podium—the Husky women had an excellent regatta in Sacramento, as they begin to make good on the physiological potential in each of their crews. In the men's second varsity eight and men's frosh eight, we were right on the money.


Ivy League Championships & Eastern Sprints

Once again, we successfully picked all the medalists for both the men's and women's varsity eights, albeit with one slight change—Yale took silver ahead of Radcliffe in Camden. As for the second varsity eights, we again picked all six medalists, though it was Brown topping the podium ahead of Radcliffe and our favorite to win, Princeton, on the women's side, while on the men's side, Bruno edged Princeton and top-pick Harvard to win the event. In the women's varsity four, all three of our picks for the medals came through; however, the Bears once again jumbling up our order, winning ahead of Yale and Princeton. The men's frosh eight we were two seconds from perfect, as our top pick Brown fell to Harvard, with Cornell taking bronze as we expected.


Conference USA

Upset city in the women's varsity eight, with our pick for silver, Texas, out-dueling their rivals from Oklahoma to take the title. In the women's second varsity eight, we again picked all the medalists, though Kansas fell to third behind Tennessee, and in the varsity four, we correctly picked first and third (OK and Kansas State), while our pick for silver (Texas) dropped to fifth, as another Lady Vol crew made the podium in second place.


Big East

As we predicted, the Irish swept the regatta, and racked up their 10th straight Big East title. In the women's varsity and second varsity eights, our picks for silver and bronze flip-flopped, with the Orange taking silver in the 1V and Louisville taking silver in the 2V, while our picks for the varsity four came through intact.


 Big Ten

While our top two picks in the women's varsity eight, Ohio State and Michigan, did in fact take first and second, respectively, it was Wisconsin that made good on their early-season potential to take the bronze, with our pick for third, Minnesota, falling to fifth. In the second varsity eight, we were again two-for-three, with OSU taking first ahead of Wisconsin, but with Michigan overtaking Minnesota for the final spot on the podium. The varsity four event saw all of our podium picks medal, though with our pick for silver, Michigan, switching places with Wisco.

All in all, a successful set of picks, and a good warmup for the upcoming IRA and NCAA National Championship Regattas at the end of the month—more predictions and opinions to come, including our take on the lightweight field in Sacramento this season. You can read our original Conference Championship Picks from last weekend here.

-RR

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