Special to the Picayune

Incoming Westlake senior Mary Dawn Kidd competed in the Women’s Junior Lightweight Four with Cox event at last week’s 2009 U.S. Rowing Youth National Championships on Harsha Lake in Ohio. Kidd and her Texas Rowing Center Junior’s crew are state and regional champions in this event.  

The Lwt 4+ event fielded 17 boats from points across the country, from Long Beach, Calif., to Northampton, Mass. and Augusta, Ga., to Seattle, Wash.

“I enjoyed seeing teams from all over the country, teams you know are going to be tough and ready to bring the heat, as they have each already won their respective regions,” Kidd said.  

She also liked “being a part of the vast amounts of sportsmanship around you” as each crew acknowledges a “good race” to one another after crossing the finish line. 

The TRC team received a fair amount of attention for their uniforms which are emblazoned with the Texas flag.  Although they weren’t the only team from Texas, Kidd noted, “We definitely stood out.”  

The first day of competition included three heats, with the top two boats of each heat moving straight to the semifinals, and the remainder advancing to one of two of the following day’s repechages, which are special heats for boats that didn’t automatically qualify. The latter is where Kidd’s boat landed with a time of 8:33.54 minutes.  

Each morning, rowers racing in the lightweight events had to weigh in. On the morning of the repechages and semifinals, one of the ARC crew didn’t make weight. This disqualified her as a rower but not as cox, so their coach switched the line-up between cox and rower. By keeping their cool, having a cox who can row and a rower who can mimic the cox, the team competed, placed and advanced to the semifinals with a time of 8:20.12.  

However, rowing two kilometers in a matter of hours and not with the original lineup proved to be too much in the semifinals, and the best the ARC crew could do was advance to the petite final.  

On the final day, the original crew made weight and raced to a sixth-place finish in a time of 8:14.92, their fastest time for the tournament.  

“Our boat worked extremely well together throughout the competition and through our personal complications with altering our lineup,” Kidd said.  “As for next year, I really hope to continue rowing as stroke for our lightweight 4+.  It’s my favorite boat, and I would love to take it to nationals again in 2010.”

Kidd’s boat was likely the youngest with an average age of 15.5 years. It had only one senior graduate this year, cox Katie Morgan. According to Kidd, the youngsters can only get better with experience.

“We have a large number of novice rowers moving up to varsity who will bring lots of talent to our squad,” Kidd said. “So not only will our team be larger, we’ll be stronger and I would definitely say watch out for us at Nationals 2010.”