Lamorinda Rowers Pull For Gold With Oakland Strokes

Colleague Stan Hudy of the Saratogian in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., wrote enthusiastically about the performances of some Lamorinda rowers in a bi-coastal championship on his end of the country last weekend.

The locals, pulling for the vaunted Oakland Strokes Rowing Club, blew into Saratoga Springs for competition with their Eastern peers and ended up winning nine inaugural championships — in borrowed shells and with borrowed oars.

As Stan quipped: "It probably forced (them) to do some extra check-ins at Albany International Airport due to the nine crystal-topped trophies they earned as additional baggage."

The Oakland Strokes competed as a “club” or “composite” rowing organization, fielding teams of rower-racers from East Bay middle and high schools. Their first meeting with the Eastern teams earned them the on-water "cred" usually reserved for older, more established teams.

“Normally our younger kids travel, but only in-state,” Oakland Strokes head coach Beth Anderson told Hudy. “For our freshman and sophomores, this was a fun trip and we know Saratoga has a good reputation and is traditionally fast. We have a competitive team this year and we wanted to see what they could do.”

And they did pretty well, apparently. The youngsters had fun, were treated well by the hosting teams and learned they could hold their own in a competitive sport in which championships are often determined by tenths of a second.

“We never raced these teams before,” Isabella Calderon told Hudy. “We race the same teams all year long.”

Calderon is a freshman at Miramonte High.

Anderson said her junior level racers, ages 15-  and 17-and under, often have no competition to face at the end of their West Coast season.

“Here, they’re racing three times, sometimes four times," she said. "That’s a lot in one day.”

But apparently not so much of a strain. We'll have some additional pictures winning weekend in New York, courtesy of Stan, posted to this story later in the evening.