One year ago, the Washington men's crew captured the national championship. Three months ago, the Cal crew grabbed RowingNews' preseason no. 1 spot.

Since then, the Huskies have claimed the top ranking by going undefeated during the season. Wisconsin has also put together an undefeated season topped off by a dominating four-second win at the Eastern Sprints.

But when the first boats go into the water at this year's national championship, the past doesn't matter.

"The Patriots were unbeaten until the Super Bowl," Coach Steve Gladstone said. "But if you don't win the Super Bowl, then you are not the champs, beginning and end of story, no issues. We could lose every race all season long and win the IRAs and still be the champs."

Whoever crosses the finish line first in the varsity eight IRA grand final will be crowned the national champions. No. 5 Cal will be rowing to avenge this season's losses and attempt to give Gladstone the most national championships of any crew coach in history (12).

The Bears have spent most of this season struggling to find a cohesive unit in the varsity shell, but at the last race before the national championship, the boat appeared to finally click. Cal led for most of the race, holding off Washington, but the Huskies pulled through in the last 250 meters for the win.

"Pac-10s were a turning point for us," Nareg Guregian said. "But we still lost that race. We didn't win. The boat felt really good for once. We just weren't ready to win yet. It gave us confidence in ourselves and trust in our boat."

Gladstone finally saw the performance he was waiting the whole season for. As a result, the coach has placed a moratorium on his daily seat racing and finalized the Pac-10 line up as his varsity eight for the IRAs.

Since the Pac-10s, the varsity shell has had almost three weeks of practice together in preparation for the races. For the first time this year, the varsity oarsmen have been able to forget about losing their seat during practice and focus on making their boat the fastest it can possibly go.

"I feel that we are well positioned to make a good run at the championship," Gladstone said. "They know they can do it. They know that they have the boat speed to go fast. Psychologically, we are in a very strong position."

But the Bears' cannot afford to get complacent as the competition is extremely deep. Cal must advance past the opening heat on Thursday, as well as the semi-finals on Friday, to even make it into one of the six spots in the grand final on Saturday in Camden, N.J.

"We know we can win now, we just have to go out and do it," Guregian said. "There are so many good crews this year. It's going to be tough to even get to the grand final. We want to beat everyone, plain and simple.

"In a very raw sense, we just want to kill them."

Tags: IRA REGATTA