In a landmark move for West Coast rowing, University of San Diego Athletics announced that it's men's rowing program will join the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, beginning with the coming 2025 season.

"The University of San Diego Men's Rowing program is excited and energized to join the new Mountain Pacific Sports Federation as a part of the restructured league," University of San Diego Associate Vice President and Executive Director of Athletics Kimya Massey said. "This is without a doubt one of, if not the most competitive leagues in the country, and we look forward to competing on a national level on a regular basis. We are truly excited and grateful for this unique opportunity."

The move combines all eight of the NCAA Division I programs on the West Coast: the four teams that previously competed in the Pac-12 Conference (California, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington), with the four teams that competed in the Western Sprints (San Diego, Gonzaga, Santa Clara and UC San Diego), into a uniform conference. 

"This is a monumental move for our program and for west coast men's varsity rowing as a whole," USD Head Coach Bart Thompson said. "We feel that this move provides only positive outcomes for our program: one more automatic bid to the IRA National Championships available to the west coast programs, the opportunity to continue having the Western Sprints champion recognized and the creation of an eight-team conference that features some of the best collegiate rowing teams in the country, all while having a competitive racing format."

Read the full release from the MPSF here. 

Additionally, the change provides an additional automatic bid to the IRA National Championships for the West Coast programs. Previously, the Western Sprints conference received two bids, while the Pac-12 had three automatic bids and typically an at-large to the IRA National Championships. Going forward, the eight-team conference will have six IRA bids at stake.

The MPSF will also acknowledge a Western Sprints champion within the conference, given to the highest-finishing first varsity eight crew among the schools who were in the Western Sprints prior to the merge.

The conference championship regatta will take place on Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18 at Lake Natoma, just outside of Sacramento, Calif..