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The Redwood Scullers rowing team took home two national titles at the Youth National Championships in Sarasota, Florida, last month.
Team members Sofia Tafoya and Olivia Petri (a recent St. Ignatius College Preparatory who will attend Princeton University in the fall) won the Women’s U19 (under 19 years old) Double title, while Harper Skey (Palo Alto High School) and Reid Kawaja (Woodside Priory School) won the Men’s U17 (under 17 years old) Double title on June 15 at Nathan Benderson Park. This is the first year that the team has won national awards, according to Coach Claire Scannell.
“Triumph and wave of reassurance — every sacrifice made this season, all of the long hours and questioning, ‘Why do I wake up at 4 a.m.?’ all boiled down into that A final, and winning made every intentional action worth it,” said rower Sofia Tafoya in an email about what the win means to her. Tafoya is a recent graduate of Sequoia High School and plans to attend the University of Oklahoma in the fall.
Kawaja said that standing on the podium after that race was one of the “best feelings ever.”
“All of our hard work this year had a chance to show itself during the race,” he said in an email. “It makes me really motivated to keep getting better next year. I am so lucky to have my teammate Harper, Head Coach Monica and the coaching staff that I couldn’t have done it without.”
The club, which was formerly called the Stanford Rowing Center, rows out of the Port of Redwood City and was established in 2004.
Scannell rowed for the team while a student at Sequoia, and this is her fourth year coaching the Scullers. Scannell credits the rowers’ time and hard work for their wins this summer.
“They practice seven times a week so they’re balancing a lot on their schedule being kids also,” she said. “Most of them put in a lot of time outside of practice training on the water (and do) a ton of extra conditioning on land so when they go from California to gross, sticky Florida weather, they’re prepared.”
Scannell said rowing teaches teenagers time management, how to be part of a team sport and commitment. It also helps them form relationships outside of school and not be as wrapped up in academics. It allows them to compete on the national stage and open them up for recruitment for college rowing, she said.
The Scullers, as the name suggests, employ the sculling model of rowing, where each rower has two oars, and they learn how to row small boats, such as singles, doubles and quads. The Scullers is a smaller rowing group (with 45 people) than nearby clubs like Norcal Crew, in part, because it doesn’t offer sweeping for teens, which is rowing with two oars. Scannell says this is because you tend to see a lot of injury to the shoulders and lower back when just hulling on one side.
“We’re kind of like a tight-knit family,” Scannell said. “We like that all of our kids know all of our kids.”
Redwood Sculler’s season starts in mid-August and is open to eighth graders to seniors in high school. For more information on the group, go to redwoodscullers.org. The club is on Instagram @redwood_scullers.
