Grosse Pointe South students claim national championship in rowing

METRO DETROIT — The Grosse Pointe culture of athletic success isn’t just limited to on-land sports.

Any sport Grosse Pointe students can get their hands on seems to turn into a successful venture, and Grosse Pointe South High School students Olivia Bachert (senior), Ava Sjogren (senior), Ryleigh O’Donoghue (senior), Carly Brown (junior) and Cassie Summerfield (freshman) proved rowing was no different.

On June 11 at the 2023 USRowing Youth National Championships at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, Florida, South’s five students competed for the Detroit Boat Club, earning the national championship in the Women’s Youth 4+ by five seconds in a field of 32 boats. South’s Brennan Supino and Sam Belishi, Grosse Pointe North’s Michael Roustemis, and Detroit Cass Tech’s Ethan Kent took eighth at nationals in the Men’s U17 Quad.

“It was really surreal,” Bachert said. “It didn’t set in for a minute. We were on the water, and we were celebrating. You get off the water, and everybody is just cheering.”

Bachert, a Syracuse University commit, is one of four rowers set to continue their rowing careers collegiately. Sjogren, O’Donoghue, and Brown have committed to Northeastern University, the University of Wisconsin and Stanford University, respectively.

Competing alongside each other for the past two seasons, it was a perfect ending for the three seniors and a memorable moment for Brown as she looks to lead the squad next year.

“They’re four of the best athletes I’ve ever coached and four of the toughest athletes I’ve ever coached,” Detroit Boat Club head junior coach Michael Gentile said. “The great part is that they all came from other sports, and that’s part of it. They know what it takes to win, and they’re all experienced as rowers go. They’ve rowed together quite a few times and lost some really tough races, and they were very poised in Florida.”

While the four upperclassmen flexed their muscles for the first-place finish, Summerfield commanded the coxswain position as a freshman. The coxswain’s primary job is to steer the boat, make motivational calls, and direct the power and speed of the rowing rhythm.

Summerfield was a newcomer to the Women’s Youth 4+ group alongside O’Donoghue, and the two were ready to join a group that had finished fourth at nationals in 2022.

Bachert said that with her, Sjogren and Brown already motivated to make a run after last season’s campaign, O’Donoghue and Summerfield were the final pieces to the puzzle.

“I think we all really had something to prove, as in the three of us that went to nationals last year, we were basically on top the whole nationals last year,” Bachert said. “We had placed third in time trials and second in semis, and then we had a bad race and placed fourth in the final, which was really disheartening. We all wanted to go back and we all wanted to win, and the two people who weren’t in the boat last year had something to prove, that they were good enough to race in this boat that raced so well at nationals last year.”

The team finished second in the regional qualifier, the Midwest Championship, on Lake Harsha in Bethel, Ohio, by less than a second but was able to qualify for nationals.

For Bachert, a college commitment for rowing wasn’t in the cards just three years ago, but Bachert said the sport has been life changing.

“It’s something I did on a whim,” Bachert said. “I didn’t know it existed, and then I saw somebody in a boat on the river, and I was like, ‘Oh, I want to do that,’ and then I showed up to rowing the next day. It’s changed me as a person completely. I’ve been able to travel the world and I’ve met a bunch of my best friends from the sport. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”