Oak Ridge, Tennessee – High Point Rowing Club’s youth squad showed broad improvements across the depth of its squad in racing at the Dogwood Regatta over the weekend. And the squad impressed the coaches in more significant ways as well.
Oak Ridge welcomed 2,000 youth rowers from all over the Southeast and Midwest to compete in the Dogwood Junior Regional Regatta. The regatta is one of the largest in the Southeast.
A crew’s performance at the event will be considered heavily for seeding purposes at the USRowing Southeast Regional Championship in Sarasota, Florida in May, where rowers compete to qualify for the Youth National Championships.
High Point’s top crews for Sarasota are the women’s youth varsity eight, and the men’s youth quad sculls.Both crews easily qualified for Saturday’s afternoon finals at Dogwood, with some of the fastest times recorded in morning racing.
But when the sound of thunder began booming over the race course, High Point coaches Gene Kininmonth and Allie Davis convened and decided the conditions for the finals were unsafe to launch crews. “We would not launch crews in practice at home in such conditions so it makes no sense to do so for a race,” explained Gene. “The very first rule of boating is if you are not sure, stay on shore.”
Meanwhile, the grand finals continued without High Point’s rowers who watched from the banks of Melton Lake. “Making a safety decision like this is easy. Living with it though can test your constitution as you watch other crews racing,” added Gene. “I award immense credit to our rowers for truly buying into our club philosophy of always putting safety first. That shows great maturity.”
Soon after the women’s eight final was over, lightning and thunder rattled crews to the extent that race officials called all boats off the lake. Soon after referees returned to shore and racing was cancelled for the day.
On Sunday the weather cleared and Adam Alt and Kyle Koval qualified their double scull for the afternoon final, where they finished fourth. In the next race Austin Young and Kevin Capps finished second in the B final of the lightweight double sculls. The four scullers will combine at youth regionals to race the quadruple scull.
In women’s racing highlights, Emma Lloyd, Jaclyn Hronich, Shelby Reece, Olivia Corriere, and coxswain Morgan Epling qualified for the final of the women’s youth fours event with a second place finish in the first round of six. With Title IX scholarships boosting women’s rowing interest in high schools across the region, the women’s fours event was one of the deepest fields at the regatta and the crew went on to finish 6th in the afternoon final.
High Point then finished second in the Division II fours event just behind Asheville. The crew comprised of coxswain Elizabeth Knoor, Victoria Goldin, Aliute Udoka, Junior Ognovich, and Maddie Mullins finished ahead of Nashville, Upper Arlington, RA Hamilton and Parkersburgh South.
The two women’s fours will combine to race the youth eight at Regionals.
