Mulchrone set to start rowing with Hoosiers | Jilin Cardio Equipment Group Co.,Ltd

Growing up as a young athlete in Beverly, Ella Mulchrone did a little bit of everything, from traditional sports like basketball and softball to swimming at Ridge Country Club.

But, for Mulchrone, another sport caught her attention: water polo.

“I started water polo going into eighth grade. From there, I stuck with water sports,” Mulchrone said. “With water polo, no one knew how to play at first, but I loved it and loved learning all the little things about the sport. That drew me to it. I got to adapt on my own.”

Mulchrone, a recent Mother McAuley High School graduate, will put that mindset to good use this fall as she takes on a new sport in which she has no previous experience. Mulchrone is joining the rowing team at Indiana University (IU). No experience? No problem for Mulchrone.

“I’ve always loved doing new things,” Mulchrone said. “Like water polo, it’s the same thing with rowing. I didn’t know anyone who’d done it before. The adaptability, it’s a super fun experience. It’ll keep me super busy with that new aspect coming into the sport.”

Mulchrone, a Beverly resident and St. John Fisher Elementary School graduate, swam and played water polo at Mother McAuley, including serving as a team captain this spring on the state runner-up water polo team.

As she went through high school, she decided that swimming collegiately wasn’t something she wanted to pursue. She eventually came to the same decision about water polo.

Instead, Mulchrone almost accidentally discovered rowing.

“I got an e-mail from a coach at Eastern Michigan. It was super random, but there was a camp for rowing,” Mulchrone said. “I didn’t do the camp, but that got in my head. I knew I wanted to stay active in college and do something. Maybe I’ll join a club team? I would never let rowing bring me to a college. I wanted to choose a college, to find the right school and if they had a sport I wanted to do, so be it.”

Ultimately, Mulchrone narrowed her choices down to IU and Fairfield University. She received some help from Mother McAuley Athletic Director Laurie Jakubczak, who reached out to the coaches at both schools, and the process went from there.

Those two universities couldn’t have been farther apart in makeup. IU was a public state school with an enrollment of almost 50,000 students while Fairfield was a small, private school in Connecticut with an enrollment of just over 5,000.

“IU’s campus is beautiful. I never saw myself going to a big school,” Mulchrone said. “The more I thought about it, looked into IU and all the opportunities there, I realized I could get everything with a big school. That was the big draw.”

Mulchrone will enter the IU Kelley School of Business.

As for her new sport, the coaches sent her a workout plan to help get ready for her upcoming freshman year with plenty of weights and cardio, all intended to help her work out at an optimal heart rate. But, when it came to rowing, they didn’t want her anywhere near a rowing machine—not yet at least.

“They don’t want me to touch a rowing machine before I get there. They don’t want me to form any bad habits,” Mulchrone said with a laugh. “They want to teach me from scratch. I’ve learned the basics, know the terms, have watched YouTube videos about a day in the life of a rower just to see what I’m doing.”

Taking on a new sport, she can’t wait for the challenge. She said she can’t help but be a little nervous. Will she be in good enough shape? Will she be able to keep up with everyone? Will she pick up the right rowing fundamentals?

But, with those nerves, comes plenty of excitement.

“I’ve never know school without playing a sport. I’m really excited about that with a new sport,” Mulchrone said. “I hope to learn things about myself and push myself to the limit. I’m excited to have that experience and meet all these new people I probably would have never met if I didn’t do rowing. It’s learning new things and seeing if it teaches me anything about myself in the process.”

In her senior water polo season at Mother McAuley, Mulchrone finished with 49 goals, second on the team, and 21 assists as the Macs claimed their highest state finish since 2008.

It was McAuley’s first state appearance since 2019.

“Going into the season, I don’t think anyone thought we’d get to state. I don’t know if we thought we could make state,” Mulchrone said. “As we won that sectional championship, we thought, ‘OK, maybe we can really do this?’ It was super cool, super fun finishing out the season. We went into those games thinking, ‘We deserve to be here! We made it here!’”