This year, however, the Bears are 2-0, with the latest victory coming yesterday at Ka Lae Pohaku.

"Last week was the first time Baldwin varsity girls had ever won an MIL race and so now this is the first time we've won two weeks in a row,'' Bears coach Alika Atay said to The Maui News.

Janell Tabon, Chloe Edinger, Kyla Manzano, Shyla Kekahuna, Courtney Kaupalolo and Lindsay Pascual crossed the finish line in 4 minutes, 14.11 seconds, nearly nine seconds faster than second-place Seabury Hall.

With one more win in the three remaining MIL regattas, the Bears will clinch a spot in the state championships.

"They've earned it, they trained hard, they're pretty focused on their goal of getting to states,'' Atay said. "Although there's a win, we do know in that race we still had a lot of mistakes, so we're just hoping for them to put their best race together.

"Maybe we can be the best on Maui, but we're nowhere near ready for state level, so that's our goal, is to slowly by slowly, week by week, try to improve.''

The Bears were the only varsity I team to finish first for a second consecutive week.

The Lahainaluna boys and Seabury Hall mixed crews also won yesterday.

"We had a kind of late start, but you know, the boys that we have, they have a lot of potential, it's just putting everything together, getting in shape first, working technique and just letting things fall into place,'' Lahainaluna coach Joey Tihada said.

The Spartans' Kaikona Hendershot, Kaimi Rocha, Kaipo Rocha, Carlos Suter-Rock, Makala Kaupalolo and Sean Bailie fended off a late surge from the Bears, finishing in 4:04.59 to Baldwin's 4:04.91. The Lunas also made a run after the turn, coming in third at 4:06.18.

"I knew we had the ability to do it. Last year, we had a lot of close races, a half-second either way, and today it went to us,'' said Seabury Hall coach J.B. Guard.

"Our main focus now is just to compete against ourselves — just look in the mirror and that's who you're competing against, so make sure you're giving me the best you can give and when we come up on a day like this, we'll see if we're doing it, we'll see where we stand.''

For Baldwin, finishing second was a crucial part of its goal of earning three state berths.

"We're trying to get all three crews to states, so today we improved — every week we need to get our teams either first, second or third because it's the top three slots that get to go to states, so this week we were able to do that,'' Atay said.

"Our boys were able to improve much better — they got third, second last week, but they're still in the running to qualify for states. Our mixed crew last week was out of the running — they were fourth — and they improved this week.''

It also meant that the Bears may be on the right track in setting up their mixed crew.

"It's a hard call because in practice, we have two very even mixed crews and that's not what we want,'' Atay said. "We're trying to find a dominant mixed crew and we're still feeling our way – I'm just hoping we'll start to find our way starting next week because we only have three more races to really qualify our mixed crews.''

The Lunas' Kyle Akazawa, Izek Velasco, Sherwin Mitchell, Russell Acantilado, Kelvin Branco and Forrest Lembke edged last week's boys varsity winner, King Kekaulike, by less than a second with a time of 3:49.31.

"It's a tough division with King Kekaulike and Baldwin, and Kamehameha came in second last week, so I didn't really know what to expect,'' Tihada said.

"I knew they had the potential to do really well. They worked hard all week and I had one boy on probation and one boy missing last week — he was on vacation — but everything worked out today.''