Race Results: Stockton - Jack London Aquatic Center Junior Rowing

April 9, 2005 : JLAC Races at the Stockon Sprints

Starting VERY early Saturday morning, JLAC traveled to the delta to race in the inaugural Stockton Sprints, hosted by Stockton Rowing Inc. We took a women's JV8, a quad which raced in the Varsity 4 race, and a women's Novice B boat. Conditions were perfect at the start of the morning, clear course, cloudy but not cold, calm water. Karen Cortes served as coaches right had woman on land, and our parents put up a nice food tent. Peggy Johnston (your reporter) was drafted as a chase boat official (giving me a birds eye view of the action!)

In the JV8, JLAC started, well, getting off the line quickly with the rest of the pack, but fell back to 4th place by the 600 meter mark. JLAC rowed smoothly but did not have enough power to catch back up with the leaders, finishing in 4th place. Nicole Leong, coxing in her first race, dealt well with the floating start line and steered a good course.

The stern 4 from the JV8 regrouped along with Nicole in the cox seat and went back out immediately in the coxed quad. Racing the quad in the Varsity 4's race, they had a bit of a slow start, but caught back up with the pack on the settle. By 1000 meters norcal & River City had pulled into 1st and 2nd, and JLAC and Berkeley High were neck and neck for 3rd place. The water was getting choppy, but did not seem to affect the determined JLAC scullers. At times it was hard to see from the chase launch (where this reporter was sitting) who was in the lead for 3rd, but at the finish line JLAC prevailed, coming in 3rd place!! And this in their second race of the day with no rest in between.

The final JLAC race of the day was the Novice 8-B race. Also in her first race in the coxswain's seat was Montserrat Sanchez. Montserrat was cool calm and collected, lining up with no problems in choppy water with a slight cross-tail wind on a floating start in a 5 boat start. JLAC got off the line first, like a rocket, and stayed in first place for 200 to 300 meters! The boat, with 4 girls who had already raced once in the first race of the day, looked powerful and sharp, but couldn't hold onto the lead. The rest of the pack slowly pulled away, and although JLAC continued to row with fire, the boat had a few problems staying coordinated between the bow and stern four. In the end JLAC took 5th place, but crossed the line still rowing their hardest and still on Montserrat's nice straight course.

Results:

JV8: 1: Berkeley High 7:25.94

2: River City 7:28.19

3: JLAC 8:09.04

(cox to bow): Nicole Leong, (cox), Maya Star, Winne Chan, Gabby Oneal, Maria Acosta, Malinda Franklin, Cecilia Acosta, Shronda Allen, Annie Liebman, .

V4 (JLAC quad):

1: NorCal 8:57.61

2: River City 9:19.01

3: JLAC 9:33.81

4: Berk HS 9:34.81

5. Stockton 10:24.82

(cox to bow): Nicole Leong, (cox), Maya Star, Winne Chan, Maria Acosta, Gabby Oneal, .

Novice 8B:

1: NorCal 8:44.45

2: Berk HS 8:54.78

3: River City 9:13.16

4: JLAC 9:52.95

(cox to bow): Montserrat Sanchez (cox), Annie Liebman, Shronda Allen,

Malinda Franklin, Ja'melia Pugh, Angelica Cooper, Alicia Candies, Imani Taylor, Cecilia Acosta.