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From left, Noah Rajecki, Will Heaton, Max Burget, Isaiah Aljuwani and Liam Feeney row towards the finish line at the 110th West Side Invitational Regatta on July 7. The group helped RowBuffalo win the Men’s youth 8-plus national title.
RowBuffalo made history this past week at USRowing Youth National Championships in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
The crew of Liam Feeney, Isaiah Aljuwani, Quinten Simenz, Will Heaton, Ethan Kayna, Will Qi, Max Burget, James Dodman and Noah Rajacki won the men’s youth 8-plus. They led from start to finish, winning the event with a time of 6:06.87 and 12 seconds ahead of second-place Penn A.C.
“Noah Rajacki did an outstanding job focusing his crew and providing them energy with his race calls as they broke through the field and took open water in the opening 500 meters,” RowBuffalo coach RJ Rubino said.
In the men’s U17 4-plus, RowBuffalo’s team of Ethan Pirigyi, Oliver Reynolds, Brodie Vitko, Von Kramer and Bianca Ficorilli defended the team’s 2023 title with a mark of 7:06.32, winning the event by 1.05 seconds.
For the first time, RowBuffalo won the women’s national championship, led by Esther Littlefield and Sophie Pirigyi, taking the U23 and senior women’s pair events with times of 8:29.30 and 8:44.94, respectively.
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“Making the decision to join RowBuffalo as our first elite women’s lineup sets a new standard for how our team will be defined,” Rubino said.
William Tran won the U23 Lightweight 1x sculler with a time of 8:31.40, becoming RowBuffalo’s first national champion in a sculling event.
BPS volleyball clinic
Troy Gooch, a 2018 Canisius High School graduate, will host a skills clinic for high school boys volleyball players who are part of the Buffalo Public Schools. It’s the second time Gooch is holding a skills clinic for such students.
Gooch notably helped UCLA win the national championship as the starting libero and has played internationally for Team USA.
The skills clinic is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at City Honors High School.
Kenmore East Hall of Fame
The selection committee of the Kenmore East School Athletic Hall of Fame has announced the 2024 class of inductees, which include Tom Borschel (’66), Dennis Danheiser (’77), Thomas Diehl (’01), Trevor Pray (’16), Erin Whitehead (’05), Andrew Sturtz (’12), Jordyn Broas Wysocki and the 1972 Kenmore East football team.
The induction ceremony will be held on Oct. 24.
CLV football hires Benton
Former JFK coach Mark Benton has been named the new football coach at Cattaraugus-Little Valley. The program is 1-22 over the last three seasons, with the Timberwolves last winning during the 2022 season. Entering the 2024 season, Cattaraugus-Little Valley is on a 20-game skid.
“This will be my biggest challenge to date,” Benton said. “We have several good athletes in the program to build around.”