Sarasota, Florida - Rockland youth rowers Ariel Deljanin N. Valley Regional HS '18 and Gabriele Welp IHA '19 placed 20th in the nation in the girl's youth pair event at the 2017 USRowing Youth National Championships, a premier invitational regatta for over 1500 athletes representing over 150 teams at Nathan-Benderson Park June 9-11.
On Friday teams raced in speed time trials to determine placement in semis and finals. Of 21 crews racing, the pair completed the time trial 21st with a time of 8:46.07 following ACRA (8:22.27) and Utah (8:22.19). Their final was scheduled for Saturday, but inclement weather postponed it until Sunday. In the three boat D final the pair had a much stronger performance and finished second in 8:32.08 good for 20th place overall. They were runner-up to Utah (8:19.13) having closed the gap by 10 seconds, and finished 30 seconds ahead of ACRA (9:02.21).
The overall winner of the girl's youth pair was Connecticut Boat Club (7:30.89), a duo with international experience, second-place went to Artemis (7:51.24) and third-place was Vashon Island (7:55.08). The RRA rowers went into the regatta with about three weeks of pair training and about one year each of competitive racing experience, mostly in sculling boats. Deljanin helped earn the bid for the Youth Nationals entry with pair partner Frankie Fradianni Nyack '17 at the Mid-Atlantic Youth Championships in mid-May where they placed third behind ACRA. Welp was called up as an alternate when Fradianni could not attend.
Next up for the youth team is the Schuylkill Navy Regatta on June 17 in Philadelphia.