Trinity Hall Student Dives into Rowing

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By Elizabeth Wulfhorst

TINTON FALLS – During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, many people picked up new hobbies, but, four years on, most have given them up. Those knitting needles are now gathering dust and the sourdough starters have long since landed in the trash.

Not so for the “hobby” Liz Paolella, now a junior at Trinity Hall, began in 2020.

“At the start of the pandemic, we didn’t really have anything to do,” explained Liz. “So, my dad bought a rowing machine (also called an ergometer) and I basically just erged all throughout lockdown. I learned that it was actually a sport and that you could go in the water and row.”

The following spring she attended Florida Rowing Center and became enamored with the sport.

“I learned to row there and I kind of just loved it right away,” she said.

Growing up close to the water, Liz had always kayaked and paddleboarded. “I just love being on the water by myself. That just makes me happy” she said.

She played soccer and basketball but decided to drop soccer to focus on rowing. Liz still plays basketball for Trinity Hall because it “gives her something that’s fun to do over the winter” when she isn’t out on the water.

Students who want to row competitively usually have to go it alone as not many high schools in the county offer crew as a sanctioned sport. Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School is the only public school in the Two River area with a crew team; Christian Brothers Academy is the only private school with a team. While she couldn’t attend the all-boys school, Liz did get help from someone her dad knew who was connected with the school – Scott Belford, the longtime crew coach at CBA who now heads the women’s crew team at Monmouth University, a program he created in 2021. “He started setting me up with a training program and everything, and he really helped me start out,” Liz said.

Since high school team rowing wasn’t an option, Liz said it didn’t factor into her high school choice. “I picked Trinity Hall just mainly because of the culture there and the academics,” she said. Academically, Liz is a STEM-oriented student and said she loves chemistry.

Liz competed in one race in 2021 at Overpeck Lake in Teaneck. “It was a lot of fun. It was my only race that year, and it was my first race, but I enjoyed it a lot,” she said. In summer 2022, Liz competed in three races, and “that’s kind of really where my racing and competing started.”

While she raced with Navesink River Rowing Club in Red Bank in 2023 and 2024 in a quad boat, Liz’s training and focus has been on racing a single. In addition to being fairly new to the sport, she is not a large person, so lightweight (under 130 pounds for women) suits her. “I’m never going to be 6 foot, 100 whatever. I’m never going to be as big and strong as some of the rowers in heavyweight,” she said, which is why she enjoys lightweight.

“I really think it puts everyone right on the same level, and you can really race to see how good you can be,” she said about racing in a single.

“I like team boats a lot, but I also like feeling like I’m in control, right? And I love competing,” Liz said.

Liz entered as an unaffiliated rower (not associated with a club) in Under 17 races when she started and has moved up to Under 19 races now, a “tricky” adjustment. Liz has a late calendar year birthday and racing age groups go by calendar year. “So I’m a lot of times racing against a lot of girls who are almost a year older,” she explained.

While Liz said she is focused on the spring rowing season and college right now, a long-term goal is to race the lightweight single at the World Championships. She was inspired by the U.S. Olympic rowing team efforts in Paris but said the lightweight event is unfortunately being dropped from Olympic competition.

In 2023, there were only seven universities that offered a lightweight women’s team, so the competition is fierce and Liz has her work cut out for her. But in April she won the Garden State Scholastic Championship, qualifying for nationals, and she consistently places in the Top 10 at events, a feat as an unaffiliated rower that should have colleges calling.

The article originally appeared in the September 5 – 11, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.