PRINCETON, N.J. – After being selected as a spare for the 2017 World Rowing Championships, former Gonzaga All-American rower Kara Soucek will be on the water this year.

She was selected to stroke the Women's Quadruple Sculls for the upcoming 2018 World Rowing Championships, September 8-16 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.  She joins Maureen McAuliffe, Emily Huelskamp and Elizabeth Sonshine, who returned to the quad, hoping to build off of last year's fifth-place finish.

Last year Soucek, who has been rowing scull for three years now, became the first Gonzaga rower to make a senior national rowing team since Monica Tranel, who graduated in 1988, rowed in the 2000 Olympics. She was the first rower to make a senior national team in any sport since Kristine Holzer competed in speed skating in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Soucek graduated from Gonzaga in 2016 and was a First Team All-American and two-time West Coast Conference Rower of the Year.

"I think I was able to accomplish so much so quickly because of my time rowing at Gonzaga and the support I've gotten along the way," Soucek told GoZags.com last year.  "I have had some pretty extraordinary coaching while in school and while in Saratoga. All my coaches and teammates have really driven me in this direction."

She was selected following the conclusion of the 2018 Senior National Team selection camps.  The full 2018 Senior National Team will be named following the conclusion of Senior & Para Trials II scheduled for August 5-8. The regatta course Plovdiv is an artificial canal with total length of 2300m.

Part of this release courtesy of usrowing.org.