Pirate rowers capture national championship at ACRA

OAKRIDGE, TN -- School history was made this weekend at the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) National Championships, as the Orange Coast College women's crew took home its first-ever national rowing title in the Novice 8 race on Sunday.

After two days of qualifying, the Pirates advanced to the Grand Final, where they took on five other four-year schools, including Bowdoin College, who topped all over boats with the fastest times during qualifying. 

But all that was forgotten as the OCC boat of Mya Zepeda, Katherine Luu, Jovana Hester, Nagisa Kudo, Logan Presho, Devin Morrison, Raquel Bennett, Savannah Sennott and coxswain Christian Cristobal came out fast and strong at the start and carried a lead that the Pirates never relinquished. 

"My girls crushed it in the finals," head coach Laura Behr said. "We had the second-fastest time in the semifinals and they came out strong in the finals. It was amazing. I have never seen a team want it more. Everything they did all year was to make sure they got a little bit faster every race. Nothing was really different this weekend except they all wanted it together and they did it with all heart and mental toughness."

Coast carried an open-water lead on Bowdoin, with UC Irvine, Purdue, Grand Valley and Liberty well behind the top two boats. Bowdoin -- the Maine-based, four-year college nicknamed the Polar Bears -- showed some late-race fight and got within a boat length, but it was too little, too late as the Pirates pushed back and reopened their lead back to open water and won the school's first women's crew national championship with a time of 7 minutes, 7.4 seconds.

"I knew we would be able to pull it off," Morrison said. "There is no better feeling than crossing the finish line in first place after what feels like the most painful 7 minutes of your life. But at that moment, the hard work was done and it was all happy tears from then on. I show up and pull for the eight other girls in the boat and that makes the winning the title all the more special. Time for a repeat next year!"

The Polar Bears took the silver with a time of 7:13.64, followed by UCI (7:28.67), Purdue (7:38.47), Grand Valley (7:44.09) and Liberty (7:47.0).

"Competing in the Grand Final forced us to trust all of the training and conditioning coach Behr and Cami put us through during the season," Sennott said. "Many of us were brand new to the sport.  But, all of those early mornings in the wet and the cold led us to this moment.  We knew the competition would be more intense than ever, which is what made this victory so pleasing.  I could not be more proud to be a part of this team who worked together and supported each other to put OCC on the top of the mountain and make the Novice 8 boat the national champions! We screamed, we cried.  It really will be a moment I remember for the rest of my life."

OCC also competed in the Varsity 4 race and, much like the Novice 8, they too performed well during qualifying rounds and earned a spot in the Grand Final.  There, the Pirates and the rest of the six-boat field had to contend with powerhouse Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), who pulled away from everyone with a winning time of 7:30.37). The Pirates -- led by the squad of Julia Dervieux, Emma Hallums, Sara Chiaromonte, Lauren Koermer and coxswain Izzy Sendowsky -- earned a hard-fought silver medal with a time of 7:50.4, followed by Northwestern State (7:51.26), University of Rhode Island (7:53.79), Ohio State (8:01.7) and University of Florida (8:02.4).  

"We only got beat by a Division I school that lost their D-1 status, so they pulled away from everyone," Behr said. "We finished second in the nation against 30 other schools, so I am super proud of that group for what they accomplished this weekend and all season."

Hallums was honored by ACRA by being named to the All-American (West Region) Team, while Chiaromonte received the All-Academic Athlete of the Year for the West Region as well.