Pirates put on grand showing at WIRAs

SACRAMENTO -- The Orange Coast College men's crew put on quite a show this past weekend at the 2016 Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association (WIRA) Championships, which took place on Lake Natoma.

Despite some adverse conditions, the Pirates brought five boats to the event and managed to qualify all five boats for each race's Grand Final.

In those finals, Coast earned three medals -- two bronze and one gold -- and qualified four boats to the ACRA National Championships in Georgia, slated for May 28-29.

"The depth of our team and hard work through the season showed with lots of close racing and hard fought finishes," OCC head coach Cam Brown said. "We look forward to the national championships at the end of this month where we will have another opportunity to perform against some of the top four-year programs in the country."

OCC's gold medal came from the Second Novice 8 race, where Coast edged out UC Santa Barbara with a winning time of 6 minutes, 38.3 seconds, just ahead of the Gauchos' runner-up time of 6:39.6. Washington State (6:47.5) finished third.

In the Varsity 8 Final, Coast raced neck and neck with powerhouses Santa Clara and UCSB and finished a solid third overall with a time of 6:07.04, just behind SCU (5:56.5) and the Gauchos (5:57.0).

"The 2nd Novice 8 remained undefeated for the season while the Varsity 8 had a tremendous result able to push through UCSD in the last few strokes to claim the Bronze medal," Brown said.

It was those same three teams battling it out in the Men's Novice 8, where the Pirates took third place with a time of 6:19.5, just behind UCSB (6:17.3) and Santa Clara (6:18.3).

In the Varsity Four race, OCC finished fourth in the finals with a time of 7:05.6, while in the Men's Novice Four, Coast reached the finals and finished sixth with a time of 7:24.2.