Newport Aquatic Center trio strikes gold in Bulgaria

Adam Casler splashed the water violently in celebration.

Aidan Murphy stood up out of his seat once the eight-man boat crossed the finish line, one of just two members of the crew to do so.

“That’s how you decide who didn’t pull as hard as everybody else,” Newport Aquatic Center coach Nick D’Antoni joked.

Casler and Murphy could celebrate however they wanted. What they accomplished was meaningful.

They were part of the U.S. men’s eight team that won gold at the World Rowing Junior Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria on Sunday. Casler and Murphy, who each row for Newport Aquatic Center, helped the U.S. pull ahead in the middle of the 2,000-meter race and finish in five minutes, 47.70 seconds, beating second-place Germany by more than two seconds.

It was the first time that the United States had won gold in the event since 2010, and stopped a streak of five straight silver medals from 2015-19. The World Rowing Junior Championships were not held last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Casler is an incoming senior at Newport Harbor High School along with Travis O’Neil, who was a spare (reserve) member of the team. Murphy recently graduated from Huntington Beach High and plans to take a gap year before enrolling at Northeastern University. They were the only members of the men’s eight team from California.

Casler, the boat’s coxswain, said that the race plan while training in Chula Vista was called “Operation Streak Breakers.”

“All summer, that was our motivation — let’s not go get silver again,” he said, adding that he wasn’t nervous racing in the final race of the five-day regatta. “I was just excited to have the opportunity to win for the USA, and have that atmosphere … Going into that race, I had no doubt that we were going to be successful.”

Aidan Murphy, Travis O’Neil, and Adam Casler, from left, of the Newport Aquatic Center.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Murphy said the feeling was surreal when the boat crossed the finish line. He added that many friends and family members woke up in the middle of the night — 4 a.m. Pacific time — to watch a live stream of the race.

“All the work we’ve done for the past three months, being away from my family and all my friends here, it paid off greatly in the final,” Murphy said. “Once we got back to land, I was having a hard time walking around. But once we crossed the line, I was so stoked.”

The men’s eight also included Tyler Horler of Florida, Ryan Link of Virginia, Jordan Dykema of Washington, John Patton of Texas, Julian Thomas of Pennsylvania and Miles Hudgins and Stephen Warming, both of Massachusetts. Link was the only men’s rower with previous experience on that stage.

Eric Gehrke coached the men’s team.

D’Antoni credited the two local rowers as well as O’Neil, who went through all of the same training and had the job of encouraging his teammates once they got to Bulgaria on Aug. 6.

“The spare is an important role but it’s also a really difficult role,” D’Antoni said. “You want the right person, who if they had to race, they could race. But you also want someone who’s willing to be a hype man.”

Casler, the coxswain, said it was his first significant win since he was a freshman, mostly due to the pandemic. He’s the younger brother of Zach Casler, who also was coxswain for NAC before heading to the University of Washington. Zach helped the Huskies win the Intercollegiate Rowing Assn. National Championship this past spring.

The younger Casler didn’t need to apologize for splashing the water after his own big victory in Bulgaria.

“That was a lot of buildup for the past couple of years,” he said. “I still can’t really put my head around it, to be honest, the feeling that I had. It was just awesome.”

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