Results

LAKEWOOD, Wash. - The Western Washington University women's rowing team opened the 2017 season winning all six of its races in the PLU Invitational held Saturday morning on American Lake.

"I thought we had a pretty good day of racing today," said 19th-year head coach John Fuchs. "The weather held for us for a change too. For a lot of our kids, it was their first race and I am sure they are excited for the upcoming season. A good way to end the quarter for sure"

The Vikings had three boats in the season-opening regatta, with the Varsity 8, 2V8 and 3V8 squaring off against both the University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University.

The Varsity 8 dominated the water winning its first race of the day over UPS by 18 seconds on the 2,000-meter course on American Lake. They concluded the day with another dominating performance over PLU, finishing the course in 7:03.9, nearly a 21-second advantage.

The 2V8 boat won both of its races, beating UPS 7:17.7 to 7:25.4 and saw tons of open water in its second race against PLU with a 7:15.6 to 8:01.0 advantage.

The 3V8 also notched convincing wins over UPS (7:42.7 - 8:19.2) and PLU (7:30.3 - 8:04.6).

The Vikings return to competition April 1-2 with the San Diego Crew Classic, where they will face some of the top competition on the West Coast in races on Mission Bay.

The WWU Rowing program is coming off a third-place finish at the NCAA National Championships last season, and has competed at nationals in 15 of the last 16 seasons. The Vikings won seven consecutive Division II national championships from 2005-2011.

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