They have reason to be. The club had its best showing in the 13 years it’s been going to the Midwest Junior Rowing Championships in May, having had several teams reach the finals and four qualify for USRowing Youth National Championships, which will be held June 9-11 in Sarasota, Fla.
The Moraine-based club has about 50 athletes, meaning a healthy number are competing at the highest level.
“We always send crews to the nationals, so it’s not as big a deal in itself as sending crews that really have a chance to compete for a title, which I believe we do this year. That’s something that hasn’t come out of Dayton since about 2010,” Miles said.
The team with perhaps the best chance to prevail is the women’s varsity four, which earned a bronze medal at the regionals. The squad includes Chloe Sutton (Centerville), Agatha Shafer (Oakwood), Rachel McNutt (Beavercreek) and Cassia Busch (Mason), while Ella Mitchell (Fairmont) will be in the boat as the coxswain, steering and navigating during the race.
Busch is the only senior in the program and has earned a scholarship to West Virginia, and Sutton has been a stalwart since moving to the area from California last year.
She’s a product of the Long Beach Rowing Club, one of the West Coast’s best outfits.
“She rows very well. She’s just very smooth through the water,” Miles said.
“We lucked out a bit there. I knew she’d be a great addition. There’s just some programs where the kids who come out of it know how to do things well.”
That applies to the DBC, which has consistently produced college talent — and the same goes for the Greater Dayton Rowing Association, which is sending four girls to the junior nationals.
The other qualifiers from the DBC are Paul Wittmann (Chaminade-Julienne) and Kevin Donnelly (Centerville) in the men’s double; Dakota McComas (a Centerville resident being home-schooled), Chris Yaklic (Centerville), Wittmann and Donnelly in the men’s quad; and McNutt and Busch in the women’s pair.
“Obviously, if they win or medal, it’s fantastic. But at the Midwest regionals, just watching these kids fight all the way down the course as hard as they could, that’s very exciting for me,” said Miles, who along with wife Trish launched the rowing program at the University of Dayton.
“I like it when they leave it all on the course and have nothing left when they cross the finish line.”
For the GDRA, Emilee Koenig (Oakwood), Megan Hinkle (Troy), Kayla Eads (Centerville) and Kate Picray (Lakota East) won the silver medal in the regionals in the women’s quad to qualify, while Hinkle also advanced in the women’s singles with a second-place showing.
Hinkle, Koenig and Eads are returning to the nationals in the quad for the third straight year. The group had a strong showing in their 2,000-meter race in 2016 but failed to medal.
“Last year’s nationals turned out to be unlucky for us in terms of seeding and which heats we were in,” said GDRA youth coach Abby Beach. “We ended up in the fastest heat. We still had the fifth-fastest crew overall, but we didn’t get to race in the final. We’re hoping for a little bit of luck this year.”
Hinkle, a University of Michigan signee, is expected to finish her high school career with a flourish. She was fourth individually last year.
“She’s very competitive and does everything she needs to do to meet her goals,” Beach said. “But, primarily, she’s just a very good teammate and knows how to be a good example.”
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