Newport Sea Base youth rowing team wins third national championship
- Share via
Parker Johnson has never lost a men’s youth 4+ rowing race for Newport Sea Base.
A recent graduate of Pacifica Christian Orange County High, Johnson took a lot of confidence into the final race of the season at the USRowing Youth National Championships held in Florida on June 14.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we’re going to win this,’” said Johnson, who’s bound for Harvard University. “When we were racing, it was more of a feeling of, ‘We’ve put in enough practice, enough work and enough conditioning over the season that I have confidence that we’re going to go get the results that we want.’”
The result the five teenagers wanted was a national championship. They delivered.
Johnson, Troy Soltesz, Shayne Centra, Linus Depiereux and coxswain Devyn Costello won gold in the race, with a time in the 2,000-meter race of 6 minutes, 36.18 seconds.
It’s the third national championship for Newport Sea Base, which also won the men’s youth 4x in 2022 and the men’s youth 4+ in 2024. Johnson was also part of the latter crew.
“We like the even years,” James Long-Lerno, Newport Sea Base coach and director, said with a laugh.
Centra is a recent Corona del Mar graduate bound for the University of Massachusetts. Costello just graduated from Newport Harbor and is headed to the St. Mary’s women’s rowing program.
Depiereux is an incoming junior at Newport Harbor, while Soltesz is a recent Dana Hills graduate who is headed to Gonzaga.
Soltesz and Centra were late additions to the national championship boat, after winning “seat races” against their teammates for the spots, Long-Lerno said.
“I had no doubt in my mind that the boat that won the championships in Sacramento [at the Southwest Youth Championships] was the fastest boat in the nation, and we still spent a couple of weeks of me pulling my hair out trying to select the boat for Florida,” Long-Lerno said. “Fifty percent of the boat was swapped out, and they still won the national championship … they executed perfectly.”
For Centra, it was his first medal at a championship.
The Newport Sea Base women’s U16 4x+ boat also won silver at the national championships, matching its result from 2024. Jolie Sletten, Sydney Chang, Sara Walker, stroke seat Klara Pietakova and coxswain Heim Kim crossed the finish line in 7:48.32, less than one second behind the winning Redwood Scullers boat.
Newport Sea Base junior women’s coach Peter Vescovi said the young crew, who ranged in age from 13 to 15, did well to overcome challenging weather conditions that caused two of their races to be nullified.
“Considering everything they went through, it was remarkable, I think, just how they dealt with it,” Vescovi said.
Overall, Newport Sea Base qualified 60 athletes for youth nationals this year, the most in program‘s history, according to rowing director Lacey Shelton.
Newport Aquatic Center earns pair of silver medals
Another prominent area youth program, Newport Aquatic Center, also did not go home from the Youth National Championships empty handed.
Its young rowers won silver medals in the men’s U17 4+ and women’s U17 8+ boats.
The men’s boat, including Zhilin Yang, Shiyao Liu, William Partnoff, stroke seat Elias Zunzunegui and coxswain Selena Stedfield, crossed the finish line in 6:58.73.
“From the very beginning of our national championship preparation, I had a feeling this boat was capable of getting on the podium,” NAC coach Marcell Stiffey said in an email to the Daily Pilot.
“In my mind, the credit belongs entirely to the athletes. They embraced every aspect of our training, trusted the process from day one, and when it mattered most, they delivered. Watching them execute on race day and earn a silver medal was incredibly rewarding, because it reflected the commitment and belief they showed.”
The NAC women’s U17 8+ boat featured Morgan Sanden, Addison Clark, Ella Moradkhani, Madison Benard, Callie Yao, Kyla Winfield, Sophia Aminian, Giuliana Ardelean in the stroke seat and coxswain Samantha Poppy. They finished second in 7:12.15.
