Fearnley stars as Newport Sea Base puts four boats in finals

The Newport Sea Base Rowing Club is still in its infancy, but its young members made a statement that they have gained their sea legs last week in the U.S. Rowing Junior National Championships at Sarasota, Fla.

Newport Harbor High senior Kendall Fearnley, a Cal commit, improved upon her seventh place showing in the tournament last year, placing second among the female single sculler division. She completed the race in 7:56.35.

The champion of the 2,000-meter competition was Connecticut New Canaan’s Claire Campbell (7:50.80).

In just its third year of existence, the Newport Sea Base Rowing Club advanced four boats into the finals. Competitors faced time trial qualifiers on Friday and their divisional semifinals on Saturday before reaching the finals.

Elisha Cameron and Luke Haynie represented the local club well, taking fourth overall (7:01.31) in the championship final of the men’s lightweight double division. They finished two seconds off of the time needed to ascend the podium.

Sea Base also sent two boats to their respective “B” Flight championships.

Directed by coxswain Anastasia Dimitropolous, the quartet of Ben Carfano, Dom Petraglia, Matt Juliano, and Travis Frame came away with a fifth-place showing (6:50.63) in the final round of the men’s junior lightweight 4+ crew. They had to work to get there, as they managed a 10^th overall finish in the time trials before taking sixth in their semifinal heat.

It only makes sense that cooperation and communication would become more vital as the number of people under one’s care increases. In that regard, a strong performance was turned in by coxswain Izzy Cooper for shepherding an eight-person crew from the last qualifying boat in time trials to the success that followed.

The women’s junior lightweight 8+ team of Annie Jarvis, Shay Virtue, Cierra Bird, Emily Kim, Sophia Koop, Claire Mahaffey, Emily Norquist, and Judy McIntyre rallied to take fourth in the semifinals, which was one place off a championship final spot. They went on to post the top overall time in Sunday’s finals. In prevailing in the “B” Flight final (6:46.72), the Sea Base team was two seconds faster than the winning team in the “A” Flight.

Andrew.Turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner