Sarasota, Florida – High Point rowers Maddie Mullins and Junior Ognovich capped off a historic season by improving on their best time by 7 seconds and finishing sixth in the women’s pair final at the USRowing Youth National Championships on Sunday.
Connecticut Boat Club won the event with a time of 7 minutes 30 seconds, nearly 21 seconds ahead of the field.
Ognovich and Mullins, who qualified for the final with a third place semi-final finish on Saturday, finished Sunday’s race with a time of 8:06.866.
The High Point duo were elated with their performance after the race.
“We really had a great last row,” said Junior as her boat returned to dock. “I felt Maddie behind me rowing hard every stroke of the race. That’s everything you can ask of your pair partner.”
“We just want to say thank you to everyone for all the support and love. We definitely would not have done this well without all the support from back home,” said Maddie after the race. “It’s a good last race to end my rowing career at High Point Rowing Club.”
The top six national ranking caps off a season that saw Junior and Maddie win the women’s double sculls final at the North Carolina state championships in April, as well as the Southeast Region title in the women’s pair in May. The regional win qualified the two for nationals.
Maddie was also the club’s 2017 Female Rower of the Year.
Maddie and Junior advise today’s High Point/Greensboro rowers to “work hard and love the process and you too can go to Nationals.”
