Mixed masters eights sit ready at the catch. Photo by Lizette Gonzalez.

Rowers donned in candy cane-striped leggings and Santa hats raced boats adorned with Christmas trees and red bow balls at the Marine Stadium Sunday for the 52nd annual Bill Lockyer Christmas Regatta.

Hosted by the Long Beach Rowing Association, the event consisted of 850-meter sprints from a floating standing start. This year’s event ran from dusk to dawn, with over 500 entries in 112 heats.

Long Beach State raced six heats—  WN4+, WN8+, WO4+, MO4+, MM2x, WM8+, placing in each category.

The women’s novice-four began their heat with a rough start, catching a crab within the first 150 meters; however, the four gained momentum, walking on the other teams during the sprint and placing in second.

“We know that if we make a mistake, we just get right back on it and don’t hesitate to take action,” said second year women’s rower Amber Ottosen. “I think after we got going again, we were even more determined to win to not let a misfortune get the best of us.”

Vigorous winds and strong currents presented challenges for boats, pushing teams towards the rocks throughout the sprint.

“Coxing with strong winds [aren’t] always necessarily more challenging, but you definitely have to be ready to adjust your steering or power up or down on either side,” said women’s varsity coxswain Jasmine Ly. “In the WO4+, the winds made it more difficult in terms of water conditions, it was hard for my rowers to get direct catches with the wind and current.”

Despite the choppy water and strong gusts of wind, the women’s varsity-four had a good race and finished in second, toe to toe with ZLAC during the final strokes of the sprint.

The men’s team raced three fours in the men’s open four heat late afternoon. Two of the three boats placed, taking home bronze and silver for Long Beach State. The four stroked by novice rower Christopher Cortez placed in second, followed shortly by the four stroked by fourth year varsity rower Ehab Elrashidy in third.

This year’s Bill Lockyer Christmas Regatta marks Long Beach State’s final race for the fall season. The men’s team will race next in the spring season at the UCLA Dual on Jan. 6.

ClockCaster results can be viewed here:

Long Beach, Calif.— With the beginning of the school year quickly approaching, the Cal State Long Beach men’s and women’s rowing teams have been hard at work recruiting freshmen, transfers, and returning students. Over the summer, numerous efforts have been made to promote the team and encourage new recruits.

For the past two months, team officers have been organizing a promotional recruitment video in an effort to recruit novice rowers and grow the teams’ size. Women’s team treasurer, Amber Ottosen, shared the collaborative process to create the video.

“Creating the recruitment video took a lot of planning, flexibility, communication, and a little bit of luck,” said Ottosen.

There were several moving pieces in the creation of the video. The team had a stroke of luck when independent videographer, Ezra Gentle, reached out to the team and offered to do a complimentary session with his drone and camera. The video’s drone shots provided by Gentle elevated the video’s appeal and created a unique experience for viewers.

“It’s really rewarding to see the product being executed all the way to the finished product, because it started as a small idea that would come true in the distant future. Now the day is here and the film is a living, breathing result of the work everybody put in,” said Ottosen.

Tomorrow night, both men’s and women’s teams will be present at Smorgasport, a big event hosted by ASI that has proven to be successful in recruitment in the past.

Watch the final video here!

Editing: Ehab Elrashidy

Filming: Ezra Gentle, Ngyuen Le

Held every year around the same time, this year’s Western Intercollegiate Rowing Championships, also simply known as WIRA, took place on the last weekend of April (4/28-4/30) at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center. This regatta featured pairs and doubles in addition to the standard 8+s and 4+s featured in just about every regatta. Being the last major and official regatta for most of the collegiate crews on this side of the country, coaches planned for the crews to peak in their training around this time; thus, it is usually the most competitive out of all of the regattas that Beach Crew partakes in. This year, novice and varsity captains from the Men’s team were chosen to lead second workouts on top of the standard 5:30 AM practice, with most of the athletes ending up getting two workouts a day, multiple days a week. The women’s team went through similar feats to prepare for competition as well, feats that required much self-discipline.

The entire Spring Season had many luckless pitfalls, and this year’s WIRA was no exception. A series of unfortunate events during this year’s WIRA ultimately lead to a few of the Men’s team’s boats being scratched from their respective heats. It was a setback to say the least, one that discouraged many members of the team. For some of the members, it would have been their last regatta of their rowing/college career. Thankfully, both the Men and Women of Beach Crew have access to Sports Psychologists,which we meet with once a week throughout the season. We were fortunate enough to have the Men’s Sports Psychologist come up with the team to Sacramento to come support, and inadvertently end up being there to help cope with the adverse news. For the most part, everyone handled the news fairly well. It also didn’t hurt that the weather for the entire weekend was absolutely perfect for being outdoors.

For the boats that went out to race in their heats, it seemed like there was extra zeal during the heats. On top of the hours of training leading up to the regatta, the news of fellow teammates not being able to compete alongside may have provided the extra edge needed for this competitive championship. Needless to say, everyone tried their hardest and the results showed;  three of our boats made it all the way to the Grand Finals on Sunday, with every other boat defeating at least one other boat in their respective heats.

Men’s Varsity 4+

Men’s Double

Women’s Varsity 4+

Women’s Double

Men’s Novice 8+

Women’s Novice 4+

Women’s Pair

Gabriel

To sum up the regatta and the Spring season, the whole weekend was an emotional-roller-coaster filled with low points and high points. Starting from the early morning bus ride all the way to the bus ride back, the experience was just that: an experience. WIRA tends to be the longest and most memorable of regattas, and this year’s WIRA did not fail to reach that quota. For many of our rowers, this regatta was supposed to be, and was in fact, the last competitive regatta of their collegiate career. It is safe to say that everyone who partook enjoyed their time spent up north in Sacramento this year alongside their fellow rowers, the very same teammates that have sacrificed hours and months waking up early to sweat and train together. Also a special thank you to the DeVore family and the Brush family for contributing much-needed nourishment to our young athletes during the competition weekend, as well as to the many unnamed supporters who have contributed various needed supplies.

As always, Row Beach!

Photo creds: Arthur Parmentier, Emily Seiersen, row2k.com

Race Results at: http://www.row2k.com/results/resultspage.cfm?UID=812DBB4D19157E385FBF638C5D29347C&cat=6