by Joe Tressa

During the weekend of May 17th and 18th, the La Salle College High School Men’s Crew Team won three medals in the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, which took place on The Schuylkill River here in Philadelphia.

The team recorded its best results in the Stotesbury Cup in 15 years. All five of the men’s eight-man boats advanced to the semifinals, with four of these teams advancing to the 6-boat Grand Final, which took place on Saturday afternoon.

The team earned three medals at the Stoesbury Cup. However, the team could not set the school record, which was set in the 1987 Stotesbury when La Salle set a team record with eight entries in the finals, with seven out of the eight final teams earning medals.

The Freshman team and the Second Varsity team both finished 2nd place, winning Silver medals. The Freshman team’s members included: Michael Galbally, Drew Senour, Donald Furmanski, Jonathan Fus, Kevin Durning, Matthew Cross, Keegan MacMaster, and Joseph Fabrizio. Members for the Second Varsity team included: Shea O’Neill, Michael Savage, Timothy Bontempi, Matthew Morozzi, Kevin Lindsay, Carlos Diaz, Scott Serpico, and Matthew Brecht.

When asked about the success of the freshman team, Head Coach Tom Madden did not seem surprised by the freshman team’s winning of the silver medal.

“I was not at all surprised. Freshmen race against freshmen and our freshmen coaches prepared our group to a really high level,” he said.

The Varsity Lightweight team also placed, earning a Bronze medal by coming in 3rd in their competition. The members for the Varsity Lightweight team on this day were: Roman Bond, Paul Melchiorre, Amedeo DeLuca, Robert Moore, Aaron Sosnader, Nicholas Ward, Julian Baseman, and Douglas MacMaster.

The fourth team to represent LCHS in the Grand Final was the Varsity club, but they ended up coming in last place in their competition. However, Coach Madden did not seem disappointed by the Varsity team’s failure to place.

“The varsity 8 was not in the grand final last year, so getting into that last group of 6 out of 38 entries this year was a good step in the right direction against very fast competition,” he said.

After doing so well in the Stoesbury Cup, Madden also seemed very enthusiastic about his team’s expectations in upcoming years.

“This is my second year as Head Coach and the team is now two years into the process that the coaching staff has put in place over the past two years,” he said. “These guys have grown by leaps and bounds since the fall of 2011, and we expect things to only get better from here.”