Rowing | Jacks do well at WIRA championships, on to GNAC title races
The Cal Poly Humboldt women's rowing squad is coming off a successful Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association championships regatta at Lake Natoma in Gold River two weeks ago, and will be back at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center this weekend for the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championships as one of the several top Division II squads competing for the team title Humboldt won last year.
On April 25-26 at the WIRA championships, Humboldt's Varsity 8, 2V8, and Varsity 4 each won their respective qualifying heats on Saturday, while the 2V4 earned an automatic berth into Sunday's Grand Final. The Varsity 8 led the way with a winning time of 7:00.122, finishing ahead of Puget Sound and UC Santa Barbara. The 2V8 followed with a first-place finish in 7:25.382, and the Varsity 4 secured its spot in the final with a strong performance (8:14.451).
"Our second eight, which is comprised of a lot of freshmen and not an NCAA event, won handily," said Jacks head coach Matt Weise. "So the future for us looks pretty good, and we've got some depth in that group that as they get older will hopefully progress into some of the faster boats. The NCAA boats, the eight and the four, actually raced great, but they were really sick. So there was a lot of illness going on that week, and they showed a lot of toughness. They had this head and chest cold thing and trying to do that as an aerobic athlete is kind of a rough existence."
The Varsity 8 delivered one of the most exciting races of the regatta, using a powerful sprint over the final 500 meters to secure a silver medal in a photo finish. Humboldt crossed in 6:57.781, narrowly edging Puget Sound (6:57.825) by just hundredths of a second for second place behind Western Washington (6:53.422). Seattle Pacific (6:57.973), UC Santa Barbara (7:06.079), and Pacific Lutheran (7:08.048) rounded out the field.
Humboldt's 2V8 crew claimed gold with a dominant wire-to-wire performance, finishing first in 7:20.74 ahead of Western Washington (7:25.951), Puget Sound (7:39.111), UC Santa Barbara (7:43.887), Pacific Lutheran (7:59.870), UC Irvine (8:06.603), and California Lightweights (8:15.151).
In the Varsity 4 Grand Final, Humboldt raced well against a deep field, finishing fourth in 8:03.372. UC Santa Barbara A won the race (7:44.352), followed by Loyola Marymount (7:52.739) and Western Washington (7:57.184), with Oregon (8:04.487) and San Diego State (8:12.555) rounding out the results.
Weise said the multi-week break between races really helped his squad get healthy and has some great training, looking forward to just how fast his team can go this weekend. As far as standouts, Weise mentioned a lineup change in the varsity eight. Lily Storseth is now the stroke-seat, which sets the rhythm of the boat. Adelaide Toll was formerly there after stroking the varsity four to the national championship last season, as Storseth stroked the eight before being out and is now back in the seat.
"They row really well behind her," said Weise. "She's going to set a good rhythm for them." The coach said the biggest hiccup in Humboldt's racing has come after the squads start off the line at a sprint, with a very high pace, and CPH has struggled finding a pace they can sustain for a mile. He said Storseth does a solid job of helping them figure that out.
"I think we've really got a big speed increase coming," said Weise. "They really did a good job training, and I'm looking forward to seeing if we can get in front of Western Washington. I feel confident that we can race them much tighter than we did two weeks ago."
Humboldt has also had a couple very close races in the eight with Seattle Pacific and Weise is hoping for a little more distance from them and, just a little further back, Central Oklahoma, whose eight is not as imposing but whose four is ranked first in the GNAC.
As to the message moving into the GNAC, Weise said it's "trust what you know. It's finals week here at Humboldt, it's final exams. You can have all the answers now, you've just got to execute. That's really what it is, and they've needed less and less coaching as the week's gone on as they're taking ownership over what they're doing. That's why I'm pretty hopeful for what the result's going to be."
Humboldt won the team and varsity four competitions in the GNACs last year, the eight finishing second. In the last four years, the four GNAC schools have all gone to the Division II championships (May 29-30), with Central Oklahoma currently on the bubble. CPH has a solid shot of getting in, barring any major miscues.
Western Washington is currently ranked first, Humboldt is second, and Seattle Pacific is third. Central Oklahoma is fourth in the GNAC and sixth in the national poll.
In the NCAA boats, Humboldt's Varsity 8 features Adelaide Toll, Ellie Walters, Elsie Stevens, River Walkington, Royce Ankel, Leah Dunn, Lily Storseth, Dayanara Anaya, with coxswain Giania Bogacki. Meanwhile, the Varsity 4 lineup consists of Laurel Calhoun, Nadia Weise, Keziah Rutschow, Emma Wilson, and coxswain Olivia Huynh.
The 2V8 gold-medal winning WIRA crew included Rowan White, Dani Harper, Linea Vizenor, Clementine Buehler, Emily O'Keefe, Lea Lankston, Gabriella Griffin, Johanna Riffel, with coxswain Jenna Frampton.
The schedule for racing Saturday is as follows: 10 a.m. – GNAC 04 Final, 10:10 a.m. – GNAC V4 Final, 10:20 a.m. – GNAC V8 Final
Ken McCanless can be reached at 707-441-0526.
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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 8:17 PM.