Over the weekend of June 12-14, seven MIHS students traveled to Sarasota, Fla. to compete for Mount Baker Crew at the US Rowing Youth National Championships at Nathan Benderson Park.

In the girls’ Varsity Eight event, graduating Islander senior oarswomen Anika Christofferson, Margaret Seaton, and Gretchen Peterson were joined by junior oar Charlotte Lepp and sophomore coxswain Izzy Gahard in a powerful showing, winning fifth place nationally.

In the boys’ Lightweight Four with coxswain event, MIHS graduating seniors Jason Campbell and Michael Chanen helped power their boat to 13th place nationally, winning the “C” final race.

Both boats began their quest in tough qualification heats on Friday and Saturday.  Only winners of these heats could advance automatically to the semifinals races, giving those crews an enormous advantage in the hot, muggy conditions with heat indices well over 100 degrees.

As neither Baker crew was able to win its initial heat, both had to regroup and race the same day in a second qualifying heat, or repechage, to continue chasing their medal dreams.

After winning their repechage Saturday evening, the Baker girls’ Eight rowed the best race of their weekend in the semifinal Sunday morning. Needing to place in the top three to advance as one of six boats to the Grand Final that afternoon, they sprinted at an amazing 44 strokes per minute to squeeze out third place by only a few feet over the 2000-meter course. They also posted the third fastest time of the day to that point, covering the course in 6 minutes, 47 seconds, only 4 seconds behind undefeated, and eventual national champion Saugatuck (Connecticut).

The boys’ Four rowed valiantly in their heat and repechage, but came up just short, and had to settle for racing in the C Final on Sunday afternoon.

In the Grand Final, the Baker girls rowed a strong and determined race, but it was apparent from the start that three tough races in the prior 36 hours had taken too great a toll. While covering the course in 6:49, the four crews finishing ahead of them had avoided the repechage heats the day before, and seemingly therefore found another gear, with Saugatuck blistering the course to win in 6:34.

In their ultimate race of the year, the boys’ Four showed speed and mettle by winning the C Final in a time of 6:54. That win resulted in a 13th place national finish for the crew.

Several of the Islander seniors look forward to rowing for Division I college crews next year, with Seaton and Christoffersen heading to Stanford University, and Peterson to Brown University.