The Strokes captured more gold and silver at the regatta than any other club rowing team in the United States.

On June 6, it was the Strokes' girls open weight 8 boat which received the gold medals and hoisted the trophy, symbolic of victory in a field that is quite competitive due in part to the Title IX-induced growth of junior women's rowing.

Two other Strokes crews narrowly missed victory, but their silver medals demonstrated to the American rowing community the balanced resurgence of the Strokes' 30-year-old co-educational program. The boys varsity 8 missed the gold by only five seats to perennial favorite Cincinnati Junior Rowing and the Strokes' defending national champion girls lightweight 8 boat lost a heartbreaker by a deck to New York's Saratoga High School.

Girls Varsity Eight
On June 6, the Strokes girls 8 boat, coached by Derek Byrnes and assisted by Liz Powell, took home gold medals in the national championship for the first time in 26 years. After qualifying for the nationals by winning the Southwest Regional at Lake Natoma in early May, the girls went to Cincinnati's Lake Harsha with high hopes, but certainly no assurances.

Although the Oakland Strokes is a nationally-known rowing program, the fifth-place finish by their 2002 boat was the girls' varsity 8 boat's only appearance at the nationals in more than a decade.

With two veterans from the 2002 crew in this year's boat, the varsity 8 arrived in Cincinnati on June 3.

The random drawing for Saturday's qualifying heats placed Oakland in what seemed to be the heat with most of the fast crews. In a strong showing, Oakland won its heat and posted the fastest qualifying time of the day when it outfought archrival Marin Rowing Association in an exhausting two-boat duel. Oakland's win advanced it directly to the finals.

Boston's Community Rowing also advanced directly from their heat with a slightly slower time over the 2,000-meter course. However, Boston was not strongly challenged in its heat and rowed the course at a much slower rate than Oakland and Marin. That raised concerns that, despite its slower qualifying time, Community was actually the fastest of the crews.

To determine who qualified for the finals on June 6, all boats except Oakland and Community had to row a second race on Saturday in additional heats to fill the remaining four places in the six-boat final field.

Confirming suspicions, the additional heats resulted in the final six-boat field consisting of five of the boats from Oakland's qualifying heat plus Community.

The girls 8 championship race was the last race of the day on Sunday. Oakland had a good start, but at 1,000 meters Community was leading and Oakland was a close third behind second-place Marin. Oakland then dug in, powered ahead, and moved into the lead. At about 350 meters from the finish they began their sprint and crossed the line with almost a boat length lead over Marin and two lengths over Community, which grabbed third place just ahead of Seattle area's Sammamish Rowing.

The same women rowed this year's varsity boat the entire season, despite injuries and colds. Miramonte High School junior Lauren Hofmayer stroked the boat and College Park sophomore Ariel Frost was the coxswain. Rowing with Hofmayer were Sarah Moore (7 seat, junior, Piedmont), Taryn O'Connell (6 seat, sophomore, Carondelet), Emilee Johnson (5 seat, senior, Connecting Waters Continuation), Ashley Jones (4 seat, junior, Skyline), Joanna Jacob (3 seat, junior, Berkeley High), Katie Sherman (2 seat, senior, Piedmont and team co-captain), and Alana Kopke (bow, senior, Piedmont).

Oakland Boys Eight Take Silver
An unusually large field of 14 boats entered the boys eight, many with impressively fast times in their qualifying regattas.

On Saturday, the Cincinnati Junior Rowing Club, winner in four of the past six years, advanced directly to the grand final by winning the first heat on calm water with a slight tailwind in the first 500 meters.

Shortly after that finish, a 10 mph crosswind arose to create the kind of rough water in which the Oakland Strokes train most days.

Using that to their advantage, the Strokes went out hard at the start, gained an early two-boat length lead over Seattle's Green Lake Crew and they never let go, winning easily and avoiding a taxing repechage heat later in the day.

The remaining 12 boats raced in two heats on Saturday evening for the remaining four positions, with San Francisco's St. Ignatius, New Jersey's Mercer and Puget Sound crews Green Lake and Everett earning lanes in the grand final.

In Sunday's final, Cincinnati jumped out to a half-length lead over the field at the start. Oakland opened at 44 strokes per minute, somewhat higher than usual. At 500 meters, Cincinnati held a six-seat lead over Oakland, which had settled to 36 and was fighting off local rival St. Ignatius and New Jersey's Mercer Rowing Club for second.

Coxswain Alysha Koorji called for a move at 750 meters which left Mercer far behind and established a one-boat length lead over SI, but Cincinnati maintained its lead.

The field held in these positions for another 250 meters when, at the 1,000-meter mark, SI powered up to try to overtake the Strokes. Oakland met SI's challenge and returned to its one-length lead but gained only slightly on Cincinnati in the process.

"Oakland took a seat or two in the middle but we took it back," Cincinnati coxswain Brad Reis said.

At that point, Oakland began to realize that it was a battle for second, and focused on maintaining its position relative to Cincinnati and SI for the remainder of the race.

Cincinnati crossed the finish line at 6:13.91, just five seats and 2.27 seconds ahead of Oakland at 6:16.18. St. Ignatius was third at 6:19.48.

Strokes boys varsity head coach Dana Hooper, completing his third year at the helm of the Strokes, shared his rowers' disappointment at not winning such a close race, but praised his crew.

"I think we all agree this was our best race of the year," he said. "We did everything that we could, so we not only have no regrets, we're quite proud of this achievement. The silver will look a lot better when we get home."

In addition to coxswain Alysha Koorji (Miramonte senior headed to the University of Washington), the boys eight crew included stroke Johnny Viel (co-captain and Piedmont High junior), Anthony Fahden (Acalanes senior, Dartmouth), Roman Rezanowicz (St. Joseph Notre Dame senior, Yale), Matt King (co-captain and Piedmont High senior, Harvard), Peter Collister (Albany senior, UCLA), Sam Baum (Berkeley High junior), Rudy Gustafson (Berkeley High junior) and Josh Sowick (Piedmont senior, University of Pennsylvania).

The second-place finish was the best performance at the Nationals by a Strokes open weight eight since 1998, when a Strokes crew that included three junior national team members (Ahlstrand, Kennelly and West) was second to St. Mary's Prep by 3.4 seconds.

In 1999, the Strokes took a bronze, 8.5 seconds behind Cincinnati. Oakland's varsity eight boys last won the national championship in 1980. The lightweight eights won silver medals at the Youth Invitational in 1999 and 2000.

Cincinnati won the event for the second consecutive year and for the fourth time in the past six years.

Oakland Lightweight Women Take Silver Medals
Oakland's Lightweight 8 (all girls less than 130 pounds) returned to Cincinnati as the defending National Champions, but this year's boat was hit hard by injuries and graduation of seniors from last year's winning boat.

The Lightweights placed third in their qualification heat early Saturday morning.

Later Saturday, the Lightweights won their heat against a different field of competitors by over 12 seconds to advance to Sunday's early morning final with renewed confidence.

In the finals, the Lightweights gave their all on the course. The Strokes were in the lead from about 500 meters, but Saratoga and Cincinnati began making their moves at the 750-meter mark. The Strokes were able to hold off this competition until the 1,250 meters, but at about 1,500, Saratoga pulled into a two-seat lead.

Oakland sprinted the final 300 meters of the course, but Saratoga continued to maintain its lead to the finish line. Oakland's time was 7:07.44, behind Saratoga's winning time of 7:06.90. Host Cincinnati finished third with a time of 7:08.80.

Emily Gibson (senior, Head-Royce) was the coxswain. Elissa Malmquist (senior, Campolindo) stroked the boat. Following her were Victoria Peckham (7 seat, junior, Piedmont), Josie Morgan (6 seat, junior, Oakland Tech), Laura Gerhardt (5 seat, junior, Piedmont), Laura Huppert (4 seat, sophomore, Piedmont), Megan Mills (3 seat, junior, Bishop O'Dowd), Claire Compton (2 seat, freshman, Bentley), and Rebekah Kharrazi (bow, junior, Alameda Community Learning Center).

With seven returning rowers, the Lightweights hope to return to Cincinnati next year.