Honors roll in for area crew members

By Hugh Rist For the News & Messenger
Published: July 11, 2008

The high school rowing season may be over, but the honors continue to roll in for several members of the Woodbridge Vikings’ rowing team, who are participating in U. S. Rowing Junior Nationals Development Camps this summer.
Tyler Dawson, the reigning Potomac News Rower of the Year as a junior, sat bow seat in an eight that won the Junior Eight title at the Independence Day Regatta in Philadelphia recently. Dawson’s boat, which rowed 2,000 meters rather than the 1,500 meters that is customary for high school races, outpaced 14 boats from the East Coast and Canada at the largest club regatta of its kind in the nation. Dawson’s boat’s winning time was 6:00.22, which was more than six seconds faster than the Three Rivers Rowing Association’s entry (6:06.79), which finished second. Dawson’s feat duplicated that of his high school coach, Mike Malak, who won the same event in 1974, as part of a similar boat.
Woodbridge’s Allison Mayberry, who was chosen to the Potomac News’ all-area second team this past season as a sophomore, stroked the US Junior Nationals Development Camp’s Junior Eight’s first boat, which won its race at 6:54.05, more than 12 seconds faster than Thames River Sculling Club, which finished second. Later in the three-day regatta, Mayberry also stroked the USJN Development Camp’s Junior Four entry to a first-place finish. Katherine Changes, Mayberry’s teammate on Woodbridge’s varsity eight this past season, sat two seat in the USJN Development Camp’s second junior eight boat, which won its heat and finished fifth in the final.
All three of the Woodbridge rowers will compete at the US Rowing National Club Championships in Camden, NJ on July 17-19 and Dawson is rowing for a seat in the Junior National eight boat that will represent the United States against teams from Canada and Mexico in the Can-Am-Mex Regatta in Oklahoma City on July 26.
McMullin makes US Under-23 Team
Joe McMullin, a former Woodbridge standout, will be part of the U. S. Men’s Four with coxswain entry at the FISA Under-23 World Championships in Brandenburg, Germany from July 17-20. McMullin sat in the one seat for the University of Wisconsin’s varsity eight boat, which won the national championship on June 7. McMullin made the FISA team after a successful row at the 2008 World Championship Trials at Lake Mercer in West Windsor, NJ in late June.