Document text
Ashland Rowing Club victorious at nationals SACRAMENTO - The Ashland Rowing Club had 11 top-three finishes in the U.S. Rowing National Masters Championships on Lake Natoma, Aug. 20-24. Each of the 23 Rogue Valley athletes representing Medford, Ashland, Phoenix and Talent won medals at the event, where over 1,000 competitors from 94 rowing clubs converged to race in one-, two-, four- and eight-oar events. The ARC's four-oared men's D (age 50-54) crew of Steve Kiesling, Andy Baxter, Jim Sims, Ron Iverson and coxswain Elysia Newman won the gold over second and third-place crews from Long Beach, Calif., and Sacramento. The ARC crew took an early lead with a fast start at over 42 strokes per minute, leading at the quarter mark by more than three seconds. At the halfway mark of the 1,000-meter course, Kiesling, a former Olympian, began increasing the rating into the rising headwind and the exhausting strategy seemed to work as the underdog ARC crew extended its lead to 12 seconds. Newman urged an early sprint from her crew, staving off any possible challenge in one of the day's most dominating performances. In the lightweight men's F (60-64) singles championship, ARC's Alfred Czerner broke away from the field in the first thirty strokes to win gold. Pressing hard through the halfway marker at a low, powerful rate of 30 strokes a minute, Czerner increased his lead to over a boat length. The race was decided in the final 200 meters, with Czerner crossing the finish line in 4 minutes, 18 seconds. Czerner also led the ARC F quad and the G (65-69) double to gold medals, and took silver in the men's G single sculls. The ARC women's eight-oared D crew of coxswain Karen Carnival, Judith Cope, Marie Maretska, Patti Ruiz, Corinne Lombardi, Cathy Tronquet, Deb Holden, Diana Fairbanks and Carol Huffman won the bronze medal in a very close race, edging out the Syracuse (Calif.) crew in a surging finish and nearly overtaking the silver medal crew from Connecticut. In other events: Kiesling and Baxter finished third in the men's B (43-49) pair; ARC's F men's four of Carl Prufer, Joe Lusa, Dan Hirsch, Phil Benedetti and coxswain Toni Knox claimed the silver in their division; Sims won bronze in the men's E (54-59) lightweight single, as did Scott Knox and Benedetti in the men's lightweight D double; the women's lightweight D four of Judith Cope, Huffman, Karen Wennlund, Merike Wallace and coxswain Carnival took bronze, as did the men's/women's mixed F four of Prufer, Lusa, Holden, Fairbanks and Carnival. Masters racing is open to adults 27 and up. For more information, visit the ARC website at www.ashlandrowingclub.org. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -