Pirates post historic weekend at ACRA
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- Two national titles and four best-ever results capped off a spectacular weekend of rowing for the Orange Coast College men's crew as the Pirates capped off a historic 2026 season at the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) National Championships this past weekend.
These results led to OCC Men placing fourth overall in the team points out of 78 universities, behind only Purdue, Virginia and Bucknell and ahead of Michigan, UCLA. In all, men's and women's crew combined to place third in the national overall on team points out of 86 total universities!
"This has been an impressive group all season - and I am so proud of their work and results," OCC head coach Cam Brown said. "They deserve it. We had a dominant weekend in every race we entered - winning all four races on Friday, winning 3 of our 4 races on Saturday and our incredible results on Sunday Finals day. Coast Crew left our mark on the National scene and we can't wait to continue the momentum and progress, especially since 30 of our 36 athletes were freshmen this year!"
OCC's novice boats -- the Second Novice 8 and Novice 8 -- each earned gold medals for their championship performances.
For the Second Novice 8, the crew of Mission Schlegel, Alec Pinedjian, Cole Sinclair, Blake Rousett, Adam Rea, Brayden Jacobs, Santiago Trias, Hamza Kahn and Connor Krost (coxswain) conquered the elite four-year field, finishing the 2,000-meter race with a winning time of 6 minutes, 30.10 seconds, four seconds clear of national runner-up, Purdue University (6:34.45) and 8 seconds ahead of third-place University of Virginia (6:38.39). Michigan (6:43.35) finished fourth, followed by UCLA (6:44.79) and University of Minnesota (7:14.43).
Following Saturday's grand final championship for the Second Novice 8, OCC's Novice 8 boat wanted to add to the gold and the crew of Adam Schnore, Patrick Meesey, Matthew Josephbek, Kade Oswold, Jacob Lindley, Dominique Harrison, Linden Acevedo, Kellan Murphy and Lucas Astrachan (coxswain) kept ahead of the field all the way to the finish line with a championship time of 6:12.51, just over 2 seconds faster than Purdue (6:14.60) for the top spot. Virginia finished third at 6:14.74 in a three-boat sprint to the finish, followed by UCLA (6:17.93), Michigan (6:21.48) and Washington State (6:28.38).
Coast's two-year rowers took on the best juniors and seniors in the nation in the two varsity races, with both earning OCC's best-ever places in the grand final events.
OCC's Varsity 8 boat, consisting of Nigel Root, James Godinez, Umberto Vidali, Ryan Goertz, Adrien Howe, Aiden Cravens, Dylan Davis, Marlon Knecht and Cameron Charrette (coxswain) earned Coast's first-ever bronze medal in Varsity 8 school history, finishing third in the nation with a time of 6:03.88, just behind Bucknell University (6:03.22) by a half-second for the silver medal. Purdue earned the gold with an open-water time of 5:58.16.
For the Pirates' Second Varsity 8 (Lucien Strona, Jose Vidal, Ethan Puckett, Jeffrey Stallman, Blake Tarricone, Giaanjeet Kalsi, Tolya Delephine, Noah Thompson and Allegra Vidali (coxswain), they earned a grand final spot and there, they finished fifth in the race and ninth in the nation with a time of 6:22.16.
