Returning to the same waters in which they took second place at the Pac-10 championships three weeks ago, the UW men’s crew begins racing today with high expectations at the IRA Championships in Rancho Cordova, Calif.

This three-day regatta is the men’s rowing version of the NCAA championships, and the Huskies look to do what they did just two years ago and bring back gold to Seattle.

The Dawgs come in as one of the favored teams, with the varsity eight boat as the No. 5 seed and the freshman and second varsity boats as No. 1 seeds.

Despite finishing second in the team standings behind California in the Pac-10 championships, the Huskies swept the Bears at home earlier this season, proving they have the talent to compete for first this weekend.

“Our expectations are always of the highest level with the team that we have,” said freshman coach Lucas McGee. “We’ve got a lot of talent and three great boats.”

The Huskies have already faced a few of the top teams they’ll see this weekend, including Stanford, last year’s national champion, Wisconsin and the Golden Bears. While the varsity series with Cal was split, the UW’s top v boat lost close races to the other two teams. To get beyond this hump, McGee knows the Huskies need to focus on their boat and race strategically.

“We’ve got a lot of big, strong guys in that boat with some pretty good experience,” he said. “The goal for us is to play to our strength, which is getting the boat up and off the line as fast as we can. And we think that if we can put ourselves in a good position after that first quarter of the race, then we can utilize our strength, which is setting a fast pace in the first 500 [meters]. And then at least, we’ll be in a good spot.”

The strength in the championships for the Huskies will be the depth of the UW program, which few other teams can match.

The Huskies’ second varsity boat took home gold at the Pac-10s three weeks ago and also defeated Stanford and Wisconsin earlier in the year.

Looking to garner points for the team as well is the freshman eight boat, which comes into the race undefeated this season. While this alone is an impressive feat, McGee has stressed the message to his team of finishing the season with their best races of the year.

“We don’t really talk that much about being undefeated,” he said. “We just kind of took that off the table. The main focus here and the whole year has just been to win the last race of the year.”

With so much time off since their last competitive race, the team has been training hard to stay in shape.

McGee believes the boats have been rowing the best they have all year in the past few days and said the team is ready to take on the best in the nation.

“Everyone’s very excited to get into the racing,” he said.

Reach reporter Scott Eisen at sports@dailyuw.com.