PHOTO AND STORY COURTESY USROWING

Sixty-seven athletes have been invited to attend USRowing’s 2023 Under 23 National Team selection camps this summer. Athletes selected through the camps will represent Team USA at the 2023 World Rowing Under 23 Championships July 19-23 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

On the men’s side, the U23 Men’s Sculling Selection Camp will select the men’s quadruple sculls crew for Bulgaria. Led by Conshohocken Rowing Center Executive Director Craig Hoffman, the camp is being held in Conshohocken, Pa. The U23 Men’s Sweep Selection Camp is being run by Dartmouth College Men’s Assistant Coach John Graves out of Hanover, N.H. The camp will select the men’s eight and men’s four with coxswain.

The U23 Women’s Sculling Selection Camp is being held at the Oklahoma City High Performance Center under the direction of OKCHP Head Coach and High Performance Director Reilly Dampeer. The camp will select the women’s quadruple sculls crew that will represent the U.S. in Plovdiv. Spearheaded by University of Oklahoma Women’s Head Coach Sarah Trowbridge, the U23 Women’s Sweep Selection Camp also is being held in Oklahoma City and will select the women’s eight and women’s four with coxswain that will be heading to Bulgaria.

The selection camps got underway earlier this month and run through July 7.

Men’s Sculling Selection Camp
Cedar Cunningham – Washington State University
Matthew Davis – University of Pennsylvania
Stewart Fuqua – Yale University
Harry Hall – University of Washington
Charles Jones – University of Pennsylvania
Jason Kennedy – University of Pennsylvania
William Kynast – Northeastern University
Matthew Lexa – United States Naval Academy
Owen Maier – Williams College
James Patton – Harvard University

Men’s Sweep Selection Camp
Ian Burnett – Brown University
Adam Campain – Cornell University
Jack DiGiovanni – Brown University
Jordan Dykema – Harvard University
Joshua Golbus – Brown University
Dylan Green – University of Wisconsin
Grant Gwadz – Boston University
Bret Holt – University of California, Berkeley
Samy Houdigui – Dartmouth College
Jacob Hudgins – Dartmouth College
Joseph Kiely – University of Notre Dame
Tyler Kurth – University of California, Berkeley
Caitlin Levin – Brown University
Cameron Matossian – Yale University
Wilson Morton – University of California, Berkeley
Aidan Murphy – Northeastern University
Nicholas O’Neill – La Salle University
Braden Porterfield – Northeastern University
James Robinson – Cornell University
Keith Ryan – University of California, Berkeley
Travis Senf – Stanford University
Erik Spinka – Princeton University
Samuel Sullivan – University of Pennsylvania
Nicholas Taylor – Princeton University
Julian Thomas – Dartmouth College
Blake Vogel – University of Washington

Women’s Sculling Selection Camp
Meena Baher – Harvard University
Rosemary Barney – University of California, Los Angeles
Lauren Benedict – University of Virginia
Cathleen Castle – University of Rhode Island
Victoria Dettinger – Northwestern State University
Gabrielle Graves – University of Michigan
Natalie Hoefer – University of Notre Dame
Caeley Tierney – Duke University
Paige Wheeler – Ohio State University
Aidan Wrenn-Walz – Harvard University

Women’s Sweep Selection Camp
Camille Arnold Mages – Northeastern University
Violet Barletta – Yale University
Juliette Camahort – Stanford University
Patricia Condon – Southern Methodist University
Lauren Day – United States Naval Academy
Lale Edil – University of Oklahoma
Eva Frohnhofer – University of Virginia
Victoria Grieder – Rutgers University
Hannah Heideveld – Rutgers University
Georgia Koerwitz – University of San Diego
Megan Lee – Duke University
Dahlia Levine – Brown University
Mia Levy – Yale University
Morgan Linsley – Duke University
Evan Park – Oregon State University
Helen Ross – University of Victoria
Quincy Stone – Marin Rowing Association/Stanford University
Tess Thompson – Ohio State University
Olivia Vavasour – Brown University
Isabel Wilkowski – Brown University
Morgan Zahner – Ohio State University

STORY COURTESY AAC | PHOTO COURTESY SMU

IRVING, Texas – The SMU Varsity 8 has been named the 2023 American Athletic Conference Women’s Rowing Boat of the Year as voted by the league’s head coaches. In addition, Mustang freshman Meg Flanagan, who was a part of the Mustang V8, has been named the conference’s Newcomer of the Year.

SMU’s Varsity 8 captured the American Athletic Conference title on May 14 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and propelled the Mustangs to their third consecutive team championship. The crew consisted of Flanagan, Megan Hewison, Sarah Abrams, Alice Fahey, Nicole Campbell, Emily Baker, Daisy Butterworth, Gracie Condon and coxswain Sasha Radvanovic.

Baker, Butterworth, Fahey, Hewison and Radvanovic were all named to The American’s all-conference first team.

The Mustang V8 went on to win the petite final and finish seventh overall at the 2023 NCAA Rowing Championships.

PHOTO AND STORY COURTESY USROWING

The USRowing Masters Series kicks off this weekend with the USRowing Southwest, Southeast, and Northwest Masters Regional Championships. In addition, the Diamond States Masters Regatta and Stars & Stripes USRowing Central Masters Regional Championships will be part of the series for the first time.

The Northwest regional will see 752 entries from 39 clubs racing this weekend on Dexter Lake in Lowell, Ore. The largest of the masters regionals, more than 680 athletes are scheduled to race across 123 events. Sammamish Rowing Association leads the way with 92 entries. Lake Union Crew is bringing 59 boats, while Station L Rowing Club had 49 boats scheduled to race. The women’s mixed double sculls on Sunday is listed as the most popular event with 17 entries. Racing begins Friday and runs through Sunday.

The Southwest championships is the second largest of the five regattas and features 417 boats, 25 clubs, and 422 total athletes racing Saturday and Sunday on the Lower Otay Reservoir in Chula Vista, Calif. San Diego Rowing Club has the largest presence at the regatta, with a whopping 83 boats expected to compete. River City Rowing has 48 boats competing, while East Bay Rowing Club will have 40. There are 124 events with the women’s C quadruple sculls having the most entries with 11.

With just 38 events, the Southeast regional will take place Saturday and Sunday at Langley Pond in Aiken, S.C. The regatta has 218 boats from 27 clubs entered, with around 250 athletes scheduled to race. Atlanta Rowing Club has the most entries with 43 boats expected to compete. Nashville Rowing and Sarasota County Rowing Club have entered 27 and 26 boats,  respectively. The men’s masters single sculls will feature 25 entries.

This year, USRowing is partnering with two regattas to fill out the masters series. The Diamond States Masters Regatta will have racing across 57 events, with 415 boats from 47 different clubs scheduled to race. Capital Rowing Club is the largest competitor with 60 boats. The second largest, Chinook Performance Racing, entered 50 boats, while Riverfront Recapture will bring 32 boats. The men’s masters G-J single sculls is the largest event with 17 scullers expected to race.

In Oklahoma City, the Stars & Stripes USRowing Central Masters Regional Championships will see racing across 29 events on Saturday, with 134 boats from 12 clubs expected to compete. Oklahoma City High Performance Center will have 39 boats racing, followed closely by OKC Riversport with 35. The men’s masters single sculls has the most entries with 12 boats expected to compete.

PHOTO AND STORY BY USROWING

Five crews earned spots on the 2023 U.S. Beach Sprint National Team Friday as racing concluded at the 2023 USRowing Beach Sprint National Team Trials at Belmont Veteran’s Memorial Pier in Long Beach, Calif.
 
The winners earned the right to race at the 2023 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals scheduled for September 29 – October 1 in Barletta, Italy.
 
In the final of the junior men’s double sculls, Next Level Rowing’s Aidan Humbert and Luke Eward earned spots on the Beach Sprints National Team thanks to a 10-second victory over Unity Boat Club’s Caden Coleman and Isaiah Brooks. Next Level’s boat won the time trial by nearly 20 seconds before coming back to win the final in a 2:28.0. Coleman and Brooks finished in a 2:38.3.
 
“It was really exciting because my pair partner, Luke, was the one who was initially invited, and he was scrambling to find someone to go with him. I was not going to miss out on this opportunity,” Humber said. “I realized this is the way to make rowing fun. It’s a lot more fun than flat water, and it’s a way to make the sport grow. I really enjoy doing it even when it is stressful. It was definitely scary. The entry – I got my foot leg caught in the oar – and it was so scary seeing them pull ahead. Having that comfort knowing that my bow seat knew what he was doing, it gave me the confidence that I needed to just pull as hard as I could.”
 
In the final of the junior mixed double sculls, Next Level Rowing’s Annalie Duncomb and Malachi Anderson defeated Palm River Training Center’s Britt Wotovich and Noah Rodger by 10.5 seconds to win the final in a 2:22.8. Duncomb and Anderson won the time trial by more than eight seconds before going on to win the final. Anderson made his second Beach Sprint National Team yesterday when he won the junior men’s solo event, while Duncomb also made her second team. Duncomb won bronze in the junior women’s double sculls with Annelise Hahl at last year’s World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals.
 
“We were really excited about this one,” Duncomb said about the win in the mixed double. “We were really hoping for a good finish this year. We row really well together, so we were really excited to come here and give it another shot. I’m super excited. It’s my favorite thing in the whole world. Rowing is my life, but Beach Sprints is the most fun thing ever. I’m so excited to be going to Italy, especially surrounded by people I’ve become so close with.”
 
Duncomb came back just over an hour later to win the junior women’s double sculls with Hahl. Racing uncontested, the duo clocked a 2:36.8 to earn a trip to Italy. Hahl had already qualified for the team yesterday when she won the junior women’s solo event.
 
“We row really we together in the double, and we’re feeling really good about going to Italy in it,” Duncomb said. “I think it’s a really, really fast double, and we have a good shot at doing well there. We felt really good about it last year, and hopefully, we can place even better there this year.”
 
Next Level Rowing’s Christine Cavallo and Kory Rogers won the final of the open mixed double sculls by just under four seconds over teammates Cassidy Norton and Cameron Kumagai. Cavallo and Rogers finished with a time of 2:24.6. The duo posted the fastest time of the time trial by nearly 10 seconds and then defeated Brooke Downes and Mason Nothaft by more than 18 seconds in the semifinal. Cavallo won the open women’s solo event yesterday.
 
“Christine and I match up perfectly,” Rogers said. “I mean, the harmony is there. We just show up on race day, and it comes together perfectly. Full trust in each other, and everything is executed perfectly.”
 
Rogers came back 45 minutes later to stroke the winning open mixed quadruple sculls with coxswain. Rogers teamed up with coxswain Coral Kasden, Jeni Sorli, Alexa McAuliffe, and Christopher Bak to win the final by a little over six seconds. The crew won the time trial by just over three seconds before coming back to win the final in a 2:07.7 thanks to a strong turn and back half of the race.
 
“Peter (Choi) was so quick to the water, so I think that is all I was really thinking about,” Kasden said. “They had a half-seat on us until that buoy, but our boat just nailed that turn. Once we turned and got straight back to the beach, we just hauled it. It was all watts. I love the fact that a coxswain gets to be an athlete. I’ve been watching everybody do workouts, get sweaty, and I just have to sit there, so it’s cool to actually be part of that.”
 
Rogers, Sorli, and Bak were part of the bronze medal mixed quadruple sculls crew at the 2022 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals.
 
Beach Sprint racing is contested in a run, row, run combination over a 250-meter, out-and-back buoyed course and uses a time trial and knock-out progression system.
 
Complete results are available on HereNow.com. Click here for photos throughout the event. Click here for more event information on the event.

PHOTO AND STORY COURTESY USROWING

Thirty-three boats from six clubs are scheduled to race this week at the 2023 USRowing Beach Sprint National Team Trials at Belmont Veteran’s Memorial Pier in Long Beach, Calif.
 
Trials will feature racing in nine events – four open and five junior – with the winners earning the right to race at the 2023 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals scheduled for September 29 – October 1 in Barletta, Italy.
 
The open women’s solo event leads the way in entries with seven. Next Level Rowing’s Christine Cavallo, who won a bronze medal in the mixed quadruple sculls with coxswain at the 2021 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals and is a seven-time national team member across all levels, won both the women’s solo and mixed double sculls events at the 2023 World Beach Games Continental Qualification Regatta earlier in the year to qualify for the World Beach Games this August in Bali, Indonesia. In Long Beach, Cavallo leads a field that includes Beach Sprint National Team veterans and Next Level Rowing teammates Elizabeth Hinley and Jeni Sorli, as well as Veronica Toro Arana, who represented Puerto Rico at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and San Diego Rowing Club’s Alexandra Vallencey-Martinson, who raced on the 2021 U.S. Under 23 National Team.
 
Six scullers are entered in the open men’s solo event including Next Level Rowing’s Christopher Bak, who won the gold medal in the event at the 2022 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals. In addition to a spot on the Beach Sprint Finals team, the winner of the event will have the opportunity to race the event at the 2023 World Beach Games. With Bak’s victory at last year’s World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals in Wales, the U.S. automatically qualified a spot for the World Beach Games in the event.
 
The open mixed double sculls event also has six boats entered including the combination of Cavallo and Kory Rogers, who won the World Beach Games Continental Qualification Regatta in April. A two-time Beach Sprint National Team member, Rogers was part of the bronze-medal winning mixed quadruple sculls with coxswain crew at the 2022 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals. Hinley will be racing with Justin Stevens, who was part of the 2022 World Rowing Championships (flat-water) squad. Next Level Rowing’s Cassidy Norton, who has represented the U.S. in the women’s solo event the past two years at the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals, is focusing on the double this year and will be racing with Cameron Kumagai in California.
 
Three crews are entered in the mixed quadruple sculls with coxswain. The Next Level Rowing crew of coxswain Coral Kasden, Rogers, Sorli, Alexa McAuliffe, and Bak includes three members of last year’s bronze-medal crew. Rogers, Sorli, and Bak reached the medal stand in Wales. The second Next Level Rowing entry includes coxswain Peter Choi, Julia Lonchar, Morgan Hummel, Michael Herman, and Stevens. Hummel and Choi were part of the bronze-medal crew last year.
 
Four scullers are entered in the junior men’s solo event including Next Level Rowing’s Malachi Anderson, who won a silver medal in the junior men’s double sculls at last year’s World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals. The junior men’s double sculls event has two entries, with all four rowers in the event trying to make their first Beach Sprints National Team.
 
The junior women’s solo event has two entries – Next Level Rowing’s Annelise Hahl and Palm River Training Center’s Britt Wotovich. Wotovich has represented the U.S. in the event at the last two World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals, finishing fourth in 2021. Hahl won bronze in the junior women’s double sculls last year with partner Annalie Duncomb, who rows out of Next Level Rowing. Hahl and Duncomb will be racing uncontested in the junior women’s double this week at the trials. Last week, Hahl won the women’s single sculls at the 2023 Under 19 National Team Trials, qualifying to race at the 2023 World Rowing Under 19 Championships this August in Paris.
 
The junior mixed double sculls event also has two entries. Duncomb will race with Anderson, while Wotovich will partner with Noah Rodger. Wotovich won silver in the event in 2021 and finished fourth last year at the world level.
 
Each event opens with a time trial, followed by a bracket-style, head-to-head racing format. Racing is contested in a run, row, run combination over a 250-meter, out-and-back buoyed course and uses a time trial and knock-out progression system.
 
Racing is slated to be held Thursday and Friday starting at 9 a.m. each day. Thursday’s racing includes the junior women’s solo, junior men’s solo, open women’s solo, and open men’s solo events. Friday’s racing includes the junior women’s double sculls, junior men’s double sculls, junior mixed double sculls, open mixed double sculls, and open mixed quadruple sculls with coxswain. Click here for more event information. Results will be available on HereNow.com.

PHOTO AND STORY COURTESY IRCA

The Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association is excited to announce the 2023 winners of our Individual and Team Specialty Awards, which honor several exceptional student-athletes, in addition to our well-deserving colleagues and fellow coaches. This year’s awards include:

Jack R. Robinson Inspiration Award – Given to an athlete or coach who has demonstrated the drive and motivation to overcome adversity or make a major impact on their team or community. This award is named in honor of Cornell Heavyweight Commodore and coxswain, Jack Robinson.

Leadership Award – Given to a coach or administrator who has shown great leadership and become a role model for men’s collegiate rowing.

Comeback Athlete of the Year – Given to an athlete who has shown significant improvement with their perseverance, determination, and dedication.

Comeback Team of the Year – Given to a team that has shown significant improvement with their perseverance, determination and dedication.

Novice Award – Given to an athlete (oarsman or coxswain) who started their rowing career in college and has become a top tier athlete within their program and in the sport of men’s collegiate rowing.

Scholar Athlete Award – Given to the athlete with the strongest combination of academic and athletic accomplishments as determined through a combination of GPA, major field of study, academic achievements, athletic performance, etc.

Coxswain of the Year – Given to a coxswain who has demonstrated great leadership and skill to motivate their team to compete at the best of their ability.

Nominations for each award were submitted by IRCA member coaches, along with their comments and recommendations, and were then voted on by the IRCA Board of Directors to select a winner.

In addition to the awards listed above, the IRCA is pleased to honor our colleagues with the following awards:

Div 1, Div 3, and Lightweight Coach of the Year – Nominated by and voted on by their peers, the Coach of the Year from each division represents the highest ideals of coaching in men’s collegiate rowing. They lead by example through demonstrated mentorship, integrity, performance, and love of the sport while upholding the values of the IRCA and men’s collegiate rowing.

Div 1, Div 3, and Lightweight Staff of the Year – Nominated by the head coaches and voted on by the membership, this award recognizes the outstanding work done by the assistant coach(es), volunteer coach(es), boatmen, etc. from each division in service to their team and in support of the head coach.

Any IRCA member coach could submit a nomination for Coach of the Year, whereas Staff of the Year nominations came from that program’s head coach or another head coach in their league. Comments/recommendations were submitted alongside the nomination before being voted on by the IRCA membership.

In addition to these awards, we’re excited to introduce “The Gladstone Award”, named in honor of Steve Gladstone who will also be its inaugural recipient. When we reflected on the impact that Steve has had on our sport, we knew we had to honor him in a manner befitting his many years of service to men’s collegiate rowing. Rather than signifying a “lifetime achievement”, The Gladstone Award recognizes “extraordinary, sustained contributions and stewardship to men’s collegiate rowing”, of which there is no better honoree than Steve.