Results

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Pacific Lutheran University women's rowing team's varsity eight shaved off over 11 seconds from last weekend while the second varsity eight qualified for the grand finals on Saturday at Lake Natoma during day one of the 2025 Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships.

"Our two boats handled the morning really well. Now we're going to rest and recover and get our sights set on Sunday's finals," said Head Coach Matt Oclander.

Utilizing the same crew as last weekend's Northwest Conference Championships, the Lutes' varsity eight of Riah Heil, Kennadi Jones, Adia Carei, Tate Trahan, Maddie Anderson. Abby Andrews, Sophia Pancoast, Makayla Hall, and coxswain Louisa Compton barreled down the 2,000-meter course in seven minutes, 15.8 seconds to place fifth overall in the second of two heats.

"We're pretty happy with the heat for the varsity eight. We went into it with a really positive attitude. The start was amazing, fighting in the top three for the first 750, then it was a tight race with the Cal club team through the finish line. We keep seeing our time come down each race, and we're pumped for the petite final to see how fast we can go."

PLU was just under two seconds behind a lightweight boat from the University of California and was a whopping 18 seconds ahead of a boat from the San Diego State University club program. The Lutes' will race in tomorrow's petite final where they will square off against NWC rival Lewis & Clark College and four California schools. 

Pacific Lutheran's second varsity eight shaved off over three seconds from its effort from seven days ago, registering sixth place with a time of 8:23.069. The boat, crewed by Carleigh Templin, Ashley Teague, Suzie Roberts, Kaylyn Sanford, Miram Greer, Mackenzie Poppe, Sareena Dhaliwal, Jilma Diaz-Demangue and coxswain Sarah Hoskins will compete in tomorrow's grand final.

"The 2V made some great changes in practice this week and executed their race plan almost to a T. We made up a little bit of ground on L&C and we'll look to keep that trajectory going in the grand final."

PLU is back on the water tomorrow with the 1V8+ racing at 8:40 a.m. in the petite finals while the 2V8+ hits the water at 9:30 a.m. in the grand finals.