To the victors go the spoils; or rather, the victors are the spoiled.

After Sacramento State women’s rowing’s season opening sweep of the Jim Farwell cup over Santa Clara, the Hornets pointed to the fact that they were well prepared with a world class facility to train in.

“We’re spoiled,” junior Sara Crain said of the Hornets’ access to the CSUS Aquatic Center at Lake Natoma.

One of the most successful Sacramento State teams, women’s rowing hopes for continued success in coach Mike Connors’ third season with the squad.

Each season under Connors, the team has improved including taking a silver medal at the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association championships last season, an event that was held at Lake Natoma along with the Pac-10 championships and the NCAA championships — two events Connors hopes the Hornets can qualify for.

“It really helps us hosting these events here,” Connors said. “We always know where we stand.”

The WIRA championships, Pac-10 championships and NCAA championships are all on the Aquatic Center’s schedule for this year, respectively.

Racing against Santa Clara — a team that sometimes only has 1,000 meters of open water to practice on — the Hornets — with nearly four miles of open water at Lake Natoma — claimed a full sweep of the Broncos in the Jim Farwell cup Saturday morning 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 Connors and assistant coach 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.

“We were actually faster than we thought we were,” junior stroke Laura Harder said.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 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 the team has, 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.”

Perhaps they are spoiled after all.

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John Parker can be reached at [email protected]