The plan for DSC’s juniors was to use the Bay Area Indoor Regatta at Berkeley as a baseline to see what they could do a week later at the Golden State Indoor Rowing Championships at the Sac State Aquatic Center. That plan worked well as four of the five who competed at both regattas, Scarlette, Suley, McKenzie and Nathan, PRed at Sac State, while Kensley finished only 4 seconds off her bronze medal PR time at Berkeley.
Returning from a sculling camp in Arizona, Gabe, who finished 4th of 11 in the Boy’s Under 17 event at Sac State, posted DSC’s best 2 km time of the day (7:32.5). Meanwhile, DSC’s para-rowers, Elise, Rachel, and Gaby all earned gold medals in their events, and Kia, in her first ever rowing competition, got a silver medal. They were the only para-rowers at the Sac State championships, demonstrating DSC’s commitment to making rowing accessible to everyBODY.
In the closest competitions among DSC’s juniors, Suley edged out MZ by 1.5 seconds in Berkeley, but MZ came within 0.2 seconds of Suley at Sac State in the most exciting finish of the day. Equally exciting was novice Masters rower Megan’s race; her raw time was a mere half a second behind the gold medalist, while novice teammate Kate also PRed in their first ever rowing race. Also in their first rowing competitions, juniors Hazel, Klaas and Anya were impressive at Berkeley, as was Sanjina (and her more experienced brother Siddarth) at Sac State.
Coach Jonathan and intern coach Alex (who took a bronze medal) also showed their stuff at Berkeley, and intern coach Felipe competed strongly at Sac State in his first ever rowing event. The coaching plan and inspiration they and coaches Jessica, Tania, Hannabeth, Pat and Bob provided the team really paid off at this year’s indoor rowing competitions. And spectators from other rowing clubs commented that DSC’s parents, coaches and athletes were by far the most vocal cheerleaders at Sac State.
