This weekend, No. 10 Virginia rowing traveled to Redwood Shores, Calif. to compete in the Redwood Shores Regatta and battle two tough new ACC competitors — No. 2 Stanford and No. 8 California. Yet, over the course of six races, the Cavaliers were unable to secure a single win. The teams had faced off many times in the past, but this weekend marked the first time that race results against the Cardinal and Golden Bears could give Virginia a direct understanding of where it stands in the ACC.
The Cavaliers sent three boats to the West Coast — its first varsity eight, second varsity eight and first varsity four. Compared to the lineups from the same boats at Virginia's last regatta, the Big 10-ACC Dual, 17 of the 20 rowers in those top three boats have remained constant in their spots, although it is clear that there have been experiments with lineups — and potential depth testing.
Through the first and second varsity eight crews, half of the rowers remained in the same seat in the same boat — none of the rowers saw that in the varsity four. The rest of the returners in the squad were moved, either to a different seat or a different boat altogether.
Notably, coxswain lineups shifted as well. While junior coxswain Ashlyn McGinn remained in her seat of the varsity four, freshman coxswain Brie Joe and senior coxswain Chloe Lee found themselves switching places since their last regatta — with Lee now manning the first varsity eight and Joe steering the second.
The fact that Joe has been racing in the first and second varsity eights also speaks to a potential trend from Coach Wesley Ng, which has looked to be that he is trying to get his younger rowers conditioned to perform at the highest competition in the best boats.
Of the 23 rowers and coxswains sent to California this weekend, nine were freshmen or sophomores. An almost 40 percent underclassman lineup suggests that Ng and his staff want to bring Virginia back to its glory by building the team from the bottom up.
Over the course of the weekend, each of the three crews competed in two 2K contests that consisted of just two boats — them and their opponent's equivalent. Saturday, Virginia suffered three tough losses to California, which were followed by another group of second-place finishes against Stanford on Sunday, meaning the Cavaliers came off the water without a single victory.
Although the two west-coast teams are new to the ACC, the Cavaliers are no strangers to their competition — both the Golden Bears and the Cardinal came to the U.Va. Invite last season. In last years’ faceoff, Stanford came out on top of the Cavaliers in all five of their matchups with an average lead of 14.24 seconds — or around four boat lengths. The Cardinal then went on to place second at the 2024 NCAA Championship, where Virginia came 13th.
In comparison, the results from this weekend do not show signs of improvement from the Cavalier crew. Stanford's average margin was 16.6 seconds, meaning it was able to push even further away from Virginia by the time the finish horn sounded.
Looking at the Cavaliers’ performances past and present, against the Golden Bears, a similar trend persists. California won all four of last spring's races against Virginia with an average margin of 5.4 seconds. This year on the other hand, that gap jumped up to an average of 11.9 seconds.
Ng and the rest of the team have been very clear that one large goal for this season remains to be winning the ACC Championship, which the team lost for the first time in 14 years last season to Syracuse. Achieving this is made ever more difficult with three new teams in the ACC, and Virginia is going to have to adjust to that.
The Cavaliers’ next regatta will give them an even better understanding of where they stand in the conference — the Lake Wheeler Invitational April 25 and 26 will host 18 teams, including ACC competitors like Boston College, Clemson, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina and Duke.
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