Women's Novice 8 making history for the Pirates

SACRAMENTO -- The Orange Coast College women's crew came home with a little bit of school history this past weekend as the Pirates captured first place in the Women's Novice 8 race for the first time ever at the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships at Lake Natoma.

The Pirates, ranked No. 1 in the country in this race, showed exactly WHY they are ranked where they are as the boat of Mya Zepeda, Katherine Luu, Jovana Hester, Nagisa Kudo, Logan Presho, Devin Morrison, Raquel Bennett, Savannah Sennott, and coxswain Christian Cristobal advanced to the Grand Final, where they took on Sacramento State, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Davis and the University of San Diego. 

It was a close race early on before OCC and Sacramento State pulled away from the field ... then ... OCC pulled away from Sac State, winning the Novice 8 title for the first time in school history with a time of 7 minutes, 16.33 seconds. Sac State finished second at 7:23.12, followed by UCSD (7:37.69), UCI (7:40.97), UC Davis (7:49.46) and USD (7:53.81).

"They are one of the fastest women's Novice 8s to come out of OCC," Pirate head coach Laura Behr said. "They are undefeated this year. They are a strong bunch who works hard to move the boat together. The boat members help each pull harder together for each other."

Coast made it 2-for-2 with a win in the Varsity 4 race, as the boat of Lauren Koermer, Sarah Chiaromonte, Emma Hallums, Julia Dervieux and coxswain Isabella Sendowsky got out in front and never looked back, posting an open-water victory with a time of 8:03.09. UC Davis was a distant second with a time of 8:18.23, followed by Cal Berkeley lightweights (8:20.65), Arizona State (8:33.66), University of Puget Sound (8:55.51) and Pacific University-Forest Grove (9:04.77).

The Pirates have one final championship in front of them and that's the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) Championships, which will take place in Oak Ridge, TN, beginning May 19-21.