National titles in 38 boat classes were up for grabs on Sunday, June 11 at the 2023 USRowing Youth National Championships. This year’s youth nationals were the largest ever with 835 entries from 225 clubs across the country bringing in just over 4,000 athletes to Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, Florida.
Among the entries were Long Beach Junior Crew, qualifying 11 boats at Southwest Regional Championship to Nationals, taking three Women’s boats and three Men’s boats to this year’s USRowing Nationals. Bringing home gold medals in the Men’s U17 4x category! With a finish of 6:27.97, the U17 Men’s boat beat Norwalk River by one second. With Phillip Jensen, as the stroke seat, Magnus Hennessy in the three seat, Matthew Josephbek in the two seat and Preston Griffin in the bow seat.
The boys dominated the time trial as one of the fastest boats in their category. This put them on pace to once again be the fastest boat to beat in the A/B Semifinal, where they won by nearly 3.5 seconds ensuring an entry into the A-Final. During the A-Final in the height of the Florida heat the field was composed of the nation’s top crews. Each crew boat was jockeying for the lead as all eight crews surged towards the finish. Under the direction of Head Coach Thomas Graves, the team has medaled in the National Championship every season!
Long Beach Junior Crew is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, public benefit corporation dedicated to providing training in the sport of rowing and providing opportunities for regional, national and international competition to area high school boys and girls. LBJC is a volunteer run organization that was founded in 1986 and operates out of the Pete Archer Rowing Center located next to the historic Long Beach Marine Stadium, home of the 1932 Olympics. LBJC’s reputation of producing outstanding student-athletes has resulted in LBJC rowers being recruited by numerous universities and colleges across the United States including such institutions as Stanford, Berkeley, University of Washington, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton and Yale as well as the Naval Academy.
Currently LBJC offers Summer Learn to Row Camps, Winter and Spring camp, and competitive team as well as Junior High school team throughout the season. Contact info LBJC86@gmail.com or 562-431-1644.
