The Sacramento State women’s rowing team continued their strong early season form, winning five out of eight races at the Sacramento State Invitational on Saturday.

On a cold and windy morning, Sac State came close to having a clean sweep against crews from St. Mary’s, Cal, Santa Clara, Humboldt State, Sonoma State, Mills College and Cal Maritime.

“There are still leaps and bounds to be made before the end of the season,” said sophomore coxswain Jessa Carlson. “But today was successful in taking a step in the right direction.”

Sac State was victorious in the varsity eight, junior varsity eight, novice eight, second novice eight and the novice four.

The only races the Sac State crew failed to win were the varsity four and the junior varsity four and a new event, the coxswain four. The Hornets finished second to St. Mary’s in the varsity and junior varsity four and finished third behind Humboldt State and Sonoma State in the coxswain four.

In most of the races, the Sac State crew won handily, but the varsity eight was one of the more exciting races of the day. St. Mary’s got off to a quick start and had a lead at the halfway point.

Senior rower Alicia Tarkenton said part of the problem was the wind, but she gave much of the credit for coming behind to Carlson.

“The winds blew us around at the start, but we remained very confidant and didn’t let them get to us,” Tarkenton said. “Our coxswain called our power tens after they called their power tens.”

Power tens are commands the coxswain makes to the crew to row 10 strokes of special effort. It is often used when trying to pass another boat.

Coach Mike Connors said he expected to get a good race from the St. Mary’s eight. He had told his crew before the race that if they got behind to make sure they stay close and remain aggressive, “we have ability to sprint out at the end.”

Carlson said the team isn’t used to coming from behind.

“Mentally we were all in right place to come from behind,” Carlson said. “The last time this team did that was four years ago. We are pretty much a get out in front and stay out in front team.”

The junior varsity eight won easily, finishing almost half a minute ahead of the Sonoma State team.

“The disappointment there was St. Mary’s had to scratch their eight,” Connors said. “I think she had some issues this week with some of the kids, either injuries or ineligibilities.”

Co-captain senior Dani Thole was a member of the junior varsity team. “We improved a lot from last week,” she said. “We are getting faster. We had a really good practice week. I think the next couple weeks we are going to get a lot faster.”

The next two Saturdays, the Sac State rowers will be tested against San Diego State. This Saturday they will be in San Diego and the following Saturday the Aztecs will be coming to Lake Natoma.

Connors said he expects San Diego State to be a much tougher test for his team.

“We have some stuff to work on, said senior Sandra Miller. “Today was a learning experience, and we know what we have to work on now.”

While happy with the victories this week, Connors wants to see the team get better during practice to prepare for when Cal, Stanford, UCLA, Texas, Tennessee, Central Florida, Wisconsin and Minnesota come in the middle of April for the Lake Natoma Invitational. The Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship comes quickly after, scheduled for Lake Natoma the first weekend in May.

“When you don’t have people out here every day consistently, it is hard to get crews to jell,” Connors said. “We need to get everybody out here healthy and work on our stuff so we can get a little more consistency in our practice, which would then show up on our race days.”

Dan King can be reached at [email protected]