3:30 a.m. wake-up call, three times a week. Before sunrise, Taylor Iantosca (12) has driven the 20 minutes to Palo Alto and is already out on the water, squeezing in a rowing practice before school.

“Most clubs either practice late at night or early in the morning, so the water’s pretty smooth,” Taylor said. “I go to Palo Alto, and I row for two hours, and then I come to school. After school, if I’m not in volleyball, then I go back and I work out at the gym, and I do the erg machines.”

Growing up in Florida, Taylor found her passions closest to water.

“My past environment led me to figure out what I actually prioritize in life, and to go after it despite what other people say,” Taylor said. “School in Florida was pretty bad. I wasn’t happy, and I feel like I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I could, both academics and lifewise, because nobody was really supportive of what I wanted.”

She heavily influenced her family’s decision to move to California.

“I kind of made the executive decision to have our family relocate to an area that was okay and where people accepted me for who I was and what I wanted to do and supported me through that process,” Taylor said.

Despite undergoing hardships in Florida, it was there that Taylor discovered her love of rowing. The move to California before high school brought legions of other commitments, but she still found time to go to the gym to row indoors.

Starting this year, she began water practice for the first time. Taylor’s teammate Ellen Minkin (11) carpools with her to morning practices.

“It’s great because our little boat is our own little team, and we work together, and it’s great that all of us make something so fast and so great,” Ellen said. “Even though we just started recently, she’s been a really fast learner and she’s been improving and helping everyone adjust to the sport.”

Taylor’s hours of commitment paid off in September, when she was recruited by UC San Diego for rowing.

“It’s a great feeling,” Taylor said. “There’s just so much stress that’s lifted. You have a really solid school in the bag now, and it’s just so great not to have to fill out so many apps anymore.”

Other than rowing, Taylor enjoys other water activities such as diving. She has gone diving in places such as Hawaii and the Caribbean and plans to go to Mexico.

“I always think that being underwater is the closest thing you could ever get to being on the moon just because everything is so quiet, and you actually have that zero gravity feeling, and it’s really cool,” Taylor said. “It is like another world, and it has its own culture, too.”

Taylor appreciates the atmosphere of the sport beyond just the physical experience.

“When you’re out in the water, and you’re in a boat with four or eight people, you’re just rowing for the fun of it,” Taylor said. “On top of that, you see seals and stuff, and you see the sun rise, and everything’s so perfect and it’s sublime in that one moment. The world is actually really perfect at that time.”