Fairfield County Crews Aim for National Titles

FAIRFIELD COUNTY, Conn. – Clubs from throughout Fairfield County will compete this weekend at the USRowing Youth National Championships in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Teams from Connecticut Boat Club in Norwalk, New Canaan Crew, Saugatuck Rowing Club, Norwalk River Rowing Association and Greenwich Crew will compete in the regatta. In addition, Fairfield County rowers with GMS Rowing in New Milford will be among the contestants.

Saugatuck has one of the biggest contingents at nationals, with seven squads competing for titles. Saugatuck’s Boys Varsity 8+ reached the national meet for the second straight year with a team that includes Greg Zales, Max Gibson, Jake Esse, Jake Petterson, Lee Glicklich, Dave Kircher, Chris Babinec, Duncan Campbell and Marco Grant. The Varsity 8+ is one of the signature events of the competition.

New Canaan Crew, which trains at Maritime Rowing Club in Norwalk, won the men’s quadruple sculls for the second straight year in 2011. New Canaan has five crews in this year’s competition, including four boys teams.

Norwalk River Rowing also returns to the nationals after missing last year. The team led by coach Yuri Kolomiets has six crews at nationals. NRRA has two teams in the Men’s Youth 2-, where David Sullivan and Matt Koenigsberg won the Northeast Regional championship while John Massari and Alex Nicoll took third.

Connecticut Boat Club has two entries, in the Women’s Youth 4+ and the Women’s Youth 8+. Both crews won gold medals at the regional meet in May.  CBC finished third in the Women’s Youth 8+ last year.

Greenwich Crew has two teams competing, the Men’s Youth 8+ and Women’s Youth 4x.

One of the favorites to win gold could be GMS Rowing’s Rosie Grinalds, who rowed for CBC last year. She won the 1x at the Northeast meet, and was a member of the U.S. National team last year. Fairfield’s Alexa Zadravec is also entered in the 1x. New Canaan’s Jackie Cloud will also row for GMS, which has qualified six crews for nationals.

Qualifying begins on Friday. The finals are scheduled for Sunday. Live streams of the racing will be available beginning Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at the USRowing website.

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