This upcoming season, women’s rowing will make the transition competing from Conference USA to competing in the American Athletic Conference.

Switching conferences has created a lot of buzz and excitement around the team as they are looking forward to this new transition.

Coach Mike Connors is entering his 13th season as head coach of the rowing team. He has led the Hornets to four Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association titles the past nine years. Sacramento State student-athletes have earned the National Scholar-Athlete Award 32 total times during Connor’s reign as coach.

Connors said he has big expectations for this upcoming 2014-2015 season as the program looks to build upon a successful season last year; the team is looking to win its conference in 2015.

“Our biggest goal would be to win our conference championship in the automatic qualifier for the NCAA Championship,” Connors said. “I think we have the team to do it, we have to perform to expectations, it’s going to be tight racing so we’re definitely going to have people on their game and making progress.”

Last season, the Hornets finished sixth out of 11 schools at the Conference USA Women’s Rowing Championship on May 17. They also placed first in all three of their petite finals. The women are hoping to win the conference championship because the PAC-12 Conference is hosting the NCAA Rowing Championships at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center this year.

The team has had a very high confidence level since last season and feel they can not only win their conference this year, but also win the conference championship.

Senior port and co-captain Michelle Evers believes the team will do well this season as they will continue to make positive strides. Last season, Evers competed with the varsity eight and was the recipient of the CRCA National Scholar-Athlete Award for the second consecutive year.

“The way that we performed at the Head of the American this past weekend, we really set ourselves up and if we can keep building on that then I think we’re going to see the progress,” Evers said. “We’re going to do really well, we just have to continue to work hard and I think it’s going to be a great season.”

Senior port and co-captain Kim Gross not only has huge expectations for this upcoming season, but would also like to connect and build positive relationships with the younger athletes on the roster. Last season, Gross was named to the Conference USA’s honor roll. Gross was a recipient of the CRCA National Scholar-Athlete Award.

“I think it’s really neat to be co-captains with Michelle because we live together and been best friends since our freshmen year, so it makes it a little more special,” Gross said. “I know a goal for me is I’d really like to get the younger girls on our team more involved and comfortable with rowing and hopefully set them up with success for their next four years.”

This season the rowing team will be receiving equipment upgrades, such as three new rowing shells and two new launch systems. Connors said the new equipment will be a positive this season and beyond.

“We’re upgrading older equipment, the eight we’re getting for instance is going to be a boat that we’ll use for our third varsity or our first novice eight for racing,” Connors said. “So, they’ll be in a better boat in essence for racing and training and then the fours we’re going to a different vendor so we’ll see how that works.”

Gross and her teammates are more determined to win it all this season.

“Last year, we set ourselves up really well in Conference USA,” Gross said. “Its just made us more motivated to go into a new conference and it’s definitely winnable.”