The Sacramento State women’s rowing team claimed a full sweep of Santa Clara in the Jim Farwell cup Saturday morning at Lake Natoma to open its season.

The varsity eight, second varsity eight, novice eight, varsity four and novice four all won their races decisively, much to the delight of coaches Mike Connors and Carrie Hagen.

“I’m happy with the results today,” Connors said. “(The varsity eight) came in with a goal of 6:50, we ended up surpassing that with a 6:47.”

The varsity eight won by nearly half a minute over Santa Clara’s top boat, which came in at 7:16.5.

The novice eight won in convincing fashion as well, beating the Broncos by over half a minute, 7:33.1-8:06.8

“I was very pleased with today’s results, we had some great competition for our novice eight,” said Hagen, who primarily oversees the novice program.

Hagen did say tongue-in-cheek that she was torn, given that her sister is the five seat in Santa Clara’s varsity eight boat.

Connors said he echoed the sentiments; among other Santa Clara ties, Connors is an alumnus of the school and its rowing program, spending four years as a student-athlete with the program and coaching there for 12 years.

The rowing program has been training since last September, practicing on the water early mornings during the week before student-athletes have classes.

“It was nice to get a race in after training so hard for so long,” said Connors in reference to the team’s weekly regimen of 6 a.m. practices. “I told the team today is an easy day, all they have to do is 2000 meters.”