PG North: North Allegheny has stellar crew eager for U.S. Youth Invitationals

 

Thursday, June 09, 2005

By Scott Robertson, Tri-State Sports & News Service

Melissa Titus, coach of North Allegheny's rowing team, said her rowers prefer the "dead" water of lakes as opposed to strong river currents when they are involved in racing.

 

"Dead" water is easier for rowers to pull their boats through and thus contributes to faster times.

 

But when the North Allegheny rowers get into their boats, the water comes alive. The Tigers will send three boats -- two girls' and one boys' -- to this weekend's U.S. Rowing Youth Invitationals in Cincinnati as the teams attempt to build on what has been an outstanding season.

 

The team brought home 10 medals from the recent Stotesbury Cup Regatta on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia with six boys and four girls earning either gold or silver medals.

 

Andrew Kaiser and Sean Barunaas won gold in the men's senior double while Rory Dahl, Joseph Brendel, Bill Francis and Singen Elliot won gold in the men's junior quad.

 

Katie Hodnik, Megan Hudson, Sharon Dauson and Ali Bogart took silver medals in the women's senior quad.

 

Kaiser, a senior headed to Yale, will team with Dahl, Brendel and Elliot in this weekend's event in Cincinnati.

 

The girls' team will send two boats, one containing seniors Hodnik, Hudson, Dauson and Bogart and the second with junior Brittney Kelly and three sophomores in Ana Crews, Brianna Pittman and Erin Dauson.

 

Bogart, who has received a rowing scholarship to Mercyhurst, said training has been the key to the team's success. She got into rowing during the summer of her eighth-grade year and has enjoyed the competition and teamwork aspects of the sport.

 

"We have had a pretty good training program all year," she said. "We've got good competition [among the rowers] on the team, and we all work hard to get better. We do a lot of things to keep us strong."

 

The rowing team numbers about 60, 29 of them female. The rowers practice as often as six days per week on the Ohio River near Neville Island. Practicing in the strong currents of the Ohio helps strengthen them for races run mostly on lakes.

 

"This has been one of the best years we have ever had," Titus said. "Our focus has been on the races and we've had a good team performance. We actually had nine boats qualify for the [U.S. Invitationals] so that should tell you how strong a year we have had."

 

Manpower issues -- graduations, vacations and available bodies in general -- will limit the team to taking only the three boats.

 

"Rowing is definitely one of the most team-oriented sports there is," said Kaiser, a former track athlete and soccer player who joined the rowing program two years ago. "I think you have to work together between yourself and the others in the boat more than you have to work together in just about any other sport. It's really challenging that way.

 

"When you combine the technique of all of you moving in the same way at the same time together with the physical exertion, it's very tough. It comes down to how much you can give [of yourself] in every race."

 

This year's North Allegheny team has given plenty. Titus said the team has worked as hard as any she has had, and that hard work has shown itself in the overall results.

 

"It's not an easy sport -- we have tryouts and cuts," said Titus, noting that rowing has begun to draw considerable attention at North Allegheny and has lured students from most of the other traditional sports in recent years. "We're going to work hard to get ready [for the U.S. Invitationals]. We have had three weeks to prepare for this, which is unusual.

 

"We're going to work as hard as we can to get faster."

 

Bogart said her squad is ready. As one of the smaller rowers on the team, she sits in the back of the boat and provides lift. The rowers in the middle provide strength and those at the front provide balance.

 

"We're always better when we get to the competition," she said. "We've got two very strong boats.

 

" I think as long as we stay together we'll be all right. Everyone has to pull together."

 

Kaiser said the boys' team will take a similar approach in its boat.

 

"We need to keep up our physical fitness and build up our lactic threshold," he said.

 

"These are long races [three races of 2,000 yards each during the weekend] and we need to be ready for that. We've got to be mentally tough in the boat."