Ellington

The UW men’s crew team picked up right where last year’s championship season left off, earning a sweep of the Stanford Invitational on Saturday.

And it wasn’t even close.

In its first Pac-10 regatta of the season, the men’s team coasted to open-water victories in the varsity, junior varsity and freshman eights. The wins came over a highly regarded Stanford crew, ranked 10th in the latest USRowing Collegiate Poll.

Overall, UW crews won a combined 11 of 12 races during the weekend, with the women taking eight of nine.

For men’s head coach Michael Callahan, the wins validated a winter of hard training and also provided a measure of revenge.

“Last year, we came down here, and we were beaten by Stanford,” he said. “We wanted to get off to a strong start this year.”

This was especially evident in the varsity eight, the day’s first race, when the Huskies fended off the windy conditions at Redwood Shores and a strong start by Stanford to take the lead by the 1,000-meter mark. They kept up the pace and powered their way to victory with a time of 5:43.6. The win was all the more impressive considering that this group is relatively inexperienced racing at the varsity level.

Callahan was pleased by his young team’s mental focus and by their execution of the race plan.

“We wanted to get a good base rhythm going and keep the tempo up,” he said.

However, he also suspected that this wouldn’t be the last his team hears from Stanford, which typically fields one of the top crews in the always-competitive Pac-10.

“They’re one of the strongest opponents we’ll see all year,” he said. “One of their top rowers wasn’t rowing today, so we’ll expect them to get better at the Pac-10 Championships.”

The women were nearly as impressive, winning five out of six races Saturday before sweeping Iowa on Sunday. The lone blemish came as the varsity eight lost to Stanford in a race that was only close for the first 500 meters.

“Stanford was the number-one varsity in the country last year and didn’t lose any players,” said women’s head coach Bob Ernst. “They’re still pretty darn good.”

But all was not lost. In their second race, the varsity eight came back in a big way, edging out No. 13 Wisconsin in a race that came down to the closing seconds.

The second varsity and novice crews fared better against Stanford, winning their respective races.

“Our kids rowed a really good, solid race,” Ernst said of his second varsity squad, which bested Stanford by 3.6 seconds.

Ernst was adamant about the importance of the weekend’s races as a measuring stick for his team’s progress. Stanford, last season’s NCAA champion, came into the race ranked third in the country, while Wisconsin and Iowa are both strong Big-10 crews. Despite his team’s strong performance, Ernst believes there’s still much work to be done.

“Even though where we are is not where I hoped we’d be, we got some good data and some good things to work with,” he said. “We’re probably emerging a little bit, but we’ve got a ways to go.”

Reach reporter Andrew Gospe at sports@dailyuw.com.