UW junior men end skid at Class Day Regatta alongside fifth-year women

It’s the one competition in which the Washington rowing coaches can’t lose.

But for the Husky rowers, a lot was on the line at the 124th Class Day Regatta on Saturday morning, starting with boathouse pride and pins given to the winners.

Huge cheers from the winning teams — the Washington women’s fifth-year seniors and the men’s juniors — as they crossed the finish line on the Montlake Cut confirmed what this event meant to them.

“On the team, we talk about how this is the most important race of the year, besides the NCAA championship,” said fifth-year senior Brianna Hoffman from Poulsbo, one of two members along with coxswain Grace Murdock who rowed for UW last year.

Washington men’s coach Michael Callahan said his preference is for the seniors to win, and they had in the past five Class Day Regattas. While the juniors ended that reign, Callahan was happy that the race was competitive.

The juniors won with a time of 5 minutes, 48.611 seconds. The seniors (5:53.078) edged the freshmen (5:54.461) for second and the sophomores finished fourth (6:01.814).

“I loved how competitive it was,” Callahan said. “I feel it was one of the more competitive ones across both men’s and women’s fields — within a length for most of the race and late lead changes. It’s great for preparation into our season next week so a great way to start off.”

The women’s race was even tighter than the men’s with the fifth-year seniors finishing in 6:37.973, followed by the fourth-year seniors (6:40.861), the juniors (6:41.830), the freshmen (6:52.444) and then the sophomores (7:04.5).

“When someone asked me who I thought would win, I said I had absolutely no idea and that was the truth,” said UW women’s coach Yaz Farooq. “I could see strengths in all three of those (top three) boats that could shine through in the race. At the end of the day, it really was a lot of overlap all the way to the finish line. It was the tightest race that we’ve had here since I’ve been a coach (starting in the 2017 season).”

Perhaps the biggest story of the day was the juniors winning the men’s race for the first time since 2018.

“This is a great feeling and it brings us great pride to represent our class and defeat the seniors and break their five-year winning streak,” said UW junior Ryan Martin.

Junior Sam Ford said, “Hopefully we can repeat it next year.”

“I think it’s a really good way to start a racing season,” Ford said. “Before now, we’ve been competing against each other in smaller boats and to have the opportunity to come into the bigger boats and show what each class is made of … it just really sets us up well for the rest of the season.”

Murdock, the coxswain on the women’s fifth-year senior boat, said the seven rowers in her boat who transferred to UW for this season understood that the race was a big deal.

“One-hundred percent,” she said. “Just seeing the history and seeing how many people are there to support you, it makes it really clear how big of a deal it’s going to be.”

Martin and Ford said it was pretty intense in the boathouse leading up to the event, “and it peaked today,” Martin said.

“There were a lot of sideways looks the last week,” Ford said. “We got into our lineups and we started sharpening the blades and you’re looking at each other and you’re like, ‘OK, we’re on the same team, and now we’ll put that aside and compete against each other.’

“At the end of the day, it’s going to bring more unity, because being able to compete against each other and then come off the water and be together as one, again, is really important. You know, you win together and you lose together.”

Notes

The winning fifth-year senior women were coxswain Murdock, stroke Megan Lee, No. 7 seat Sophie Houston, No. 6 Marilou Duvernay-Tardif, No. 5 Sally Jones, No. 4 Emma Waters, No. 3 Evan Park, No. 2 Hoffman and bow Helen Latting.

They dressed in “The Wizard of Oz” costumes for the race. Latting came up with the class motto “All Roads Lead Here (UW)”; in the Wizard of Oz story, the yellow brick road leads to the Emerald City, which is Seattle’s nickname.

– The wining junior men were coxswain Nick Dunlop, stroke Martin, No. 7 seat Ford, No. 6 Ben Shortt, No. 5 Povilas Juskevicius, No. 4 Ewan Morrow, No. 3 Lyle Donovan, No. 2 Ryan Smith and bow Finn Griskauskas.