REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.-For the No. 9 varsity eight of the Cal women's crew, even perfection isn't good enough. After nabbing three wins against top-ranked teams at this weekend's Pac-10 Challenge, the women of the Bears' top boat are prepared for more work to come.

The Bears defeated No. 2 Virginia by 3.5 seconds, taking the lead in the first 500 meters and continuing to open up the distance through the finish line.

As grueling headwinds picked up through the first day of the regatta, Cal continued to dominate, shutting down No. 5 Ohio State by over 13 seconds.

Despite these impressive results, the Bears' thirst for speed has not been quenched.

"We're pretty satisfied, but there's definitely a lot more work to do," said junior Elena Humphreys, who sat six seat in varsity. "We just take it as one weekend in the series of a whole season. There is still a lot of room for improvement."

Cal extended its weekend winning streak by annihilating No. 14 Notre Dame by nearly twenty seconds on Sunday.

While defeating top teams like the Cavaliers, the Buckeyes and the Irish is essential to the Bears, they are more focused on rowing their own race and hoping that that goes hand in hand with winning.

"It was more important to us that we had solid races and learned something from each race internally, and winning is just a benefit from that," senior captain Mara Allen said. "We just do our own thing and go into each race focusing on ourselves."

Cal's JV boat used this approach to its advantage, rebounding after losses to Virginia and Ohio State on Saturday to defeat Notre Dame the following day by over five seconds.

The strategy? Making a few changes to the lineups.

"We kind of revamped the entire JV lineup, but it worked for this race," sophomore Kelsey Bates said. "People were switched around from boat to boat, and seats were switched within boats. As a team we've all rowed together, so it's not like it's anything new."

The varsity four snagged convincing wins over the Cavaliers and Irish, but fell to a speedy Ohio State crew by just a few seats when faced with intense winds on the course.

The novice eight captured two more wins for the Bears as they crushed Virginia by over eleven seconds on Saturday and proceeded to defeat UCLA by nearly sixteen seconds on Sunday.

Now that the Bears know they have speed, they are anxious to keep moving forward.

"We're all excited to keep on working harder and make it a good spring," coach Dave O'Neill said. "We just focus on doing our own thing. We know based on times that we've had at practice that we have some pretty good speed, but what happens on race day is always a question mark."

Judging by this weekend's results, Cal may be well on its way to eliminating that question mark.

Tags: PAC-10 CHALLENGE