Central Catholic had never sent a freshman boat to the regional rowing championships before this year.
But this was no ordinary group of freshmen.
“This freshmen boat, they were racing Central’s varsity and they were doing quite well. They were competitive with other team’s varsities,” Central Catholic freshman rowing coach Chuck Russell said. “We were approaching this as this team would do quite well at the regional qualifier.”
They didn’t just do well. They exceeded expectations.
Not only did the nine-person group — eight plus the coxswain — comprised of Will Palko, John P. McGinley, Jacob Harvey, Oliver Rivers, Matthew Aluise, John C. McGinley, Liam McAndrews, Everett Sargent and coxswain Louis Bonasso perform well at the regional, they qualified for the U.S. Rowing Youth National Championships, which were held last weekend at Benderson Park in Sarasota, Fla.
Central Catholic, which competed in the U-17 varsity division against rowers that were two to three years older, finished ninth overall in qualifying with a time of 6:19.461 and made it as far as the semifinal round. They struggled a bit in that race, though, and came in last in the head, more than 20 seconds behind the top time.
“They were definitely anxious to go down there because it was a whole new level of rowing and competition,” Russell said. “The quality of this group is just something we haven’t seen in a very long time.”
Central Catholic qualified for the national tournament with a second-place finish in the varsity division of the Midwest Junior Rowing Championships May 15-16 at Harsh Lake in Bethel, Ohio. The Vikings’ time of 4:34.9 was only 2.4 seconds off the winning pace from the team out of Culver, Ind.
But what may be the most impressive thing about making it into the national finals is that none of the nine team members had ever picked up an oar until about a year ago.
“These guys, they honestly just loved the sport from the get-go,” Russell said. “I’d love to say the coaches inspired them, but they were the ones who were the driving force in wanting to succeed.”
They also threw themselves into it. Only one of the nine even tried out for another varsity spot at Central Catholic as they constantly worked toward the goal of improving their craft.
“They’re all competitors, they’re all racers and they love to get better every single practice,” Russell said. “They just want to perfect it as much as they could.”
First Published: June 14, 2022, 10:00 p.m.
