It was a wet, cold, and windy Saturday morning to be on Lake Natomas, but that didn’t deter Sacramento State and UC Berkley from being on the water.

Sac State and the Golden Bears met in a rowing scrimmage that was meant to test each others skill on the water before the official rowing season began.

There were no official numbers taken, however, it was clear that Berkley had Sac State out matched all morning.

The Bears varsity eight and second varsity eight boats out paced the Hornets eight boat more than once. In run one, even though the boats were not aligned evenly, the Bears crossed the line by three full boat lengths.

In heat two, it was a bit closer but Sac State was still well behind Berkeley. It wasn’t all bad for the Hornets though. They were able to handle the third varsity eight boat for Berkeley in the last few heats of the morning.

At the end of the scrimmage head coach Mike Connors gave his assessment of the days activities.

“Normally in a scrimmage we do at least one switch with rowers and coxswain to see if there are any differences in the boat,” Connors said. “But because of the weather conditions I wanted to see how the boats would react and after heat one the varsity got better so it’s actually good I didn’t make any changes.”

On the remaining seats that were open in the varsity eight boat, Connors feels that as the season progresses, that the younger rowers on the team may help to fill in the gaps were speed my be lacking.

“The people coming in have talent, they just need experience,” Connors said. “As the season progresses, we will be getting more and more out of them in terms of what they are able to do and the impact they are able to have on boat speed.”

The Hornets open their season at home on March 6 against Santa Clara. The action starts at 8 a.m. at Lake Natoma in Rancho Cordova.

Matt Harrington can be reached at [email protected]