11/9/25 - CDBA College Cup 

The 2025 CDBA College Cup race in San Francisco, California was our team's first race back of the season and the first race for all of our new recruits! After joining the team a month ago with no paddling experience at all, the newbies have pushed themselves beyond belief and came away winners.

Our Mixed A Boat did an amazing job in their qualifying and semis heats, taking 1st place with a 4 second lead both times and placing into A Division finals. Our Mixed B Boat struggled a little more and placed 5th out of 6 in qualifiers. After a pep talk from our coaches, they placed 4th in the semis and qualified for B Division finals, a major improvement from previous years!

Likewise, our Women's and Open Boats did incredibly well in semis, placing 1st and 2nd respectively. Both gendered boats have made significant progress since the last College Cup by focusing on technique and timing, which had historically been our biggest weaknesses in the gendered divisions. Women's Boat finished in 3rd, and for the first time since 2016, our Open Boat medaled in finals, also taking 3rd place! 

During the Mixed B finals, our B Boat faced off against several other school's A Boats. Despite coming in 5th place, they paddled an incredibly strong piece and demonstrated significant improvements from the start of the day. Our A Boat faced off against UC Irvine, Cal,  UCLA, and San Jose State in A Division finals, taking a surprise 3rd place finish less than a second behind the 1st and 2nd place times after falling behind in the middle of the race.

This race was an incredible start to our season - our paddlers demonstrated an incredible ability to push themselves and had a great time bonding with teammates during our trip. The vets and newbies both trained hard over the past month, and each member of the team was rewarded for their hard work with a medal! This was a fantastic start to our season, and we're all motivated to keep training hard for Tempe in the Spring!