Both the sun and Sacramento State women’s rowing team shined bright on Saturday at Lake Natoma, where the Hornets swept their competition at the Sacramento State Invitational.

With nearly perfect conditions on the water, Sac State was able to post winning times in all six events.

“Overall, the team did pretty well,” Sac State head coach Mike Connors said. “We won all the races, so we are pleased with that.”

In the biggest race of the day, the varsity-eight boat paddled away from its competition, posting a time of 6 minutes, 53 seconds, nearly 17 seconds better than second place St. Mary’s.

“I think we allowed (St. Mary’s) to hang around in the race by slowing down at times,” Connors said.

The time posted by the varsity eight was seven seconds slower than last week’s time. “The varsity-eight boat is the only boat I was a little disappointed in,” Connors said. “We were looking for certain things in these great conditions and we didn’t see them. We went slower when we shouldn’t have, and they know that.”

Next week the Hornets will be facing tougher competition on their home waters at the West Coast Conference Championships.

“We will have to improve before next week,” Connors said. “(UC San Diego and Loyola Marymount) are capable of faster than 6:50; we should be at 6:45 and this week we weren’t even close.”

The varsity-eight team agreed with Connors’ assessment of their performance and the need for improvement next week.

“We did not go as fast as we should have,” junior stroke Laura Harder said. “Next week we will have to prove ourselves against tougher crews.”

The meet also saw Sac State’s novice-eight boat post its fastest time ever, 7:08.3.

“It was a beautiful day on the water and the entire program did great,” said Sac State assistant coach Carrie Hagen. “I was very pleased with the novice eight time.”

In other competition, Sac State’s varsity-four ‘A’ boat posted a time of 7:35.5, beating out St. Mary’s (7:46.6) and the Sac State ‘B’ boat (7:50.7).

“We had a lot of girls doubling up in varsity four and they did good work,” Connors said.

The WCC Championships will be held Friday and Saturday.

——————————————————————————–

Josh Oates can be reached at [email protected]