WRR Women's Varsity Pair at Youth Nationals
Photo by Heidi Alexander
White Rock Rowing Athletes Rank 4th and 7th At US Youth Nationals
White Rock Rowing’s (WRR) Women’s Varsity Pair and Men’s Varsity Quad qualified for the US Rowing Youth Nationals held in Sarasota, Florida from June 9 to 11.
During the three-day regatta, the Women’s Varsity Pair of Kaira Lay (Lay Academy) and Sam Prado (Lake Highlands High School), raced the country’s best 22 high school crews, finishing fourth in their time trial before securing a starting spot in the Grand Finale with a second-place finish in Saturday’s semi-finals. WRR finished in a formidable fourth place in the Grand Final, racing with the nation’s six fastest women’s pairs.
Connor Alexander (Lakehill Preparatory) Drew Ellis, Andrew and Will Schweizer (Woodrow Wilson High School) raced the top 23 quads the United States has to offer. After finishing third in their time trial, the crew narrowly missed qualifying for the Grand Finale by placing fourth in their semi-final. They finished the regatta with an open-water-win in Sunday’s B Final ranking them seventh nationally.
“It was terrific just to qualify 2 boats for this race. These White Rock rowers did their club, their families and themselves proud by racing with all they had in all 6 races down the 2017 National Championship race course and ending up in 4th and 7th in the country in their respective events. The boy’s quad had the highest finish of any men’s team boat in Dallas and the girl’s had the highest finish of any team boat in the great state of Texas”, said Ed Golding, White Rock Rowing’s head coach.
US Rowing Youth Nationals saw more than 1,800 athletes from 133 clubs and high school rowing programs from 106 cities racing at the highest level of competition for their age group.
For more information about White Rock Rowing’s youth summer programs and our competitive youth programs contact edgolding@whiterockrowing.org, or visit our website at whiterockrowing.org