Essex Rowing of Methuen earned seven top-three finishes at the U.S. Rowing Northeast Junior District Championship in Lowell.
The two-day regatta served as a qualifier for the U.S. Rowing Youth National Championship June 11-13 on Lake Harsha in Batavia, Ohio.
The Lowell event featured over 700 athletes from 47 rowing clubs across New England and New York. Crews competed for 30 district titles in nine boat classes.
Eighty five athletes raced from Essex Rowing, including middle and high school students from Andover, Boxford, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland, Ipswich, Methuen, North Andover, Reading, and 10 more surrounding towns.
Three Essex crews are headed to Youth Nationals in June.
The Essex women's youth pair of Elinor Hannum of Andover and Margaret Bergson of Georgetown qualified by placing third.
Those two along with Kelli O'Brien of Georgetown, Elyse Pengeroth of Andover and coxswain Courtney Cronin of Boxford finished third in the women's youth four event.
Following that, the Essex men's youth eight held off hard charges from Saratoga and Community Rowing to take first place.
The winning boat included John Corbett of Andover, Anthony Curro of North Andover, Lucius White of Andover, Sean Fanning of North Andover, Mike Bourie of North Andover, Andrew Wait of Andover, John Buchta of North Andover, Christopher Garvey of Ipswich and coxswain Christian Mund of Groveland.
Other notable finishes were a win by the men's youth second eight, second place for the men's youth novice eight, and third place in the women's youth novice four and the women's youth second novice eight.
"Our team has been working toward this for four years," said Essex Rowing founder Travis Gardner. "What we accomplished in terms of the sheer number of competitors plus those qualifying for Nationals is a testament to all of the coaches and athletes that have trained with us before as well as those that are here now."
This is the fourth year that Essex Rowing has had crews compete in the regional regatta—growing from two entries in 2007 to 15 this year. This is the first time the club qualified for the Youth National Championship.
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