Overall, another impressive "Flick" for Mount

Posted 4/18/16

One of many Norwood Fontbonne Academy grads rowing for Mount St. Joe’s, sophomore Aileen Mansfield is shown in one of the Magic’s JV fours. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption] by Tom Utescher The …

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Overall, another impressive "Flick" for Mount

Posted

One of many Norwood Fontbonne Academy grads rowing for Mount St. Joe’s, sophomore Aileen Mansfield is shown in one of the Magic’s JV fours. (Photo by Tom Utescher) One of many Norwood Fontbonne Academy grads rowing for Mount St. Joe’s, sophomore Aileen Mansfield is shown in one of the Magic’s JV fours. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

by Tom Utescher

The end of Philadelphia high school rowing’s “regular” season arrived last Sunday with the last of the races in the Manny Flick/Horvat series, and heading into the “medal” regattas in May, the performance of many Mount St. Joseph crews continued to be impressive, while the results for some others raised a few questions.

As it has in earlier Flicks, the Magic did not enter the regular lightweight eight and second eight categories, but sent these two boats into the varsity event along with the Mount’s regular varsity eight.

The crew of the full-fledged V-8 [Lindsey Maiale (cox), Erin McGreevey, Christina Knox, Grace Comerford, Maddie Lauinger, Alex Natale, Maddie Carlton, Cait Hagan, Alex Uzzo] had won its flight the previous Sunday, but New Jersey’s Montclair High School had turned in the best time while rowing in another section. The two boats met head-to-head in the first of three varsity flights, but both crews were surprised by the efforts of Merion Mercy Academy.

The Golden Bears, whose other athletic teams all compete in the same league as Mount St. Joe, drilled down the course to win in four minutes, 41.63 seconds. That figure made Merion stand out significantly from the rest of the field in the fastest of the three flights, as Mount St. Joseph finished second in 4:47.78 and Montclair faded to fifth in 4:53.80.

Right behind MSJ “A” was a Magic “B” entry that is actually the regular lightweight eight. These pound-impoverished damsels [Shannon LoStracco (cox), Julia Comerford (stroke), Vicki Matsinger, Shannon Hughes, Erica Arnold, Molly Whalen, Brooke Gimaro, Katelin Cordero, Rachel Sandquist] delivered a third-place result in 4:51.83, and in between them and Montclair was Holy Spirit, fourth in 4:53.63.

In a slower second section, Mount St. Joe “C” won by almost three-and-a-half seconds, in 5:07.21. This vessel is better known as the senior-staffed second eight [Emily Woodrow (cox), Grace Little, Julianna Hunt, Brooke McMahon, Demi Simms, Olivia Tice-Carroll, Mia Fitzpatrick, Dana Mischler, Zoe Ramos]. The third varsity eight flight was won by Radnor High School with a time of 5:10.22.

Placing third overall against a field of 16 open-weight boats was encouraging for Mount “B”, and the Magic would also demonstrate that the depth of their lightweight pool extends past the premiere eight.

The lightweight four [Olivia Kylander (cox), Paige Comtois (stroke), Maddy Sandquist, Maddie Curran, Emma French] came down with the current in 5:26.80 to win the first section over a representative of the Mount’s team tent neighbor from New Jersey, Absegami High School.

The Braves finished in 5:31.71, and all but one of the other boats in the first race were faster than the winner of the second heat, which was timed in 5:59.

The varsity four [Kathleen Brooks (cox), Brianna McBride (stroke), Grace Sowa, Liz DeGroat, Anna Gallagher] didn’t turn in a dazzling performance, coming in fifth in the first of four flights, but when all the results were in, this Mount ensemble’s time of 5:52.85 ranked them ninth out of 22 entries.

All of the other MSJ crews competed in a “head race” format, where instead of racing their rivals side-by-side in different heats, boats are dispatched one-by-one at set intervals and are ranked solely on time. This is largely due to the large number of entries in certain categories, such as the JV four class, with its field of 26 boats. Here, a Mount St. Joseph “A” four [Maddie Walsh (cox), Karsen Healy (stroke), Olivia Snakard, Kerry Faust, Christie Faust] put up the best number, 5:40.62, to edge Absegami (5:41.69). The Magic’s “B” boat in this event [Angela LaCorte (cox), Julia Flynn (stroke), Aileen Mansfield, Jen DeGroat, Rebecca Patti] placed in the top third, coming in eighth in 5:50.86.

The Mount’s strong JV eight had seen its personnel and seatings tweaked, and last weekend’s line-up [Abby Schwenger (cox), Brayslin Gallagher (stroke), Celene Mina, Sam Cordero, Sam Altomare, Cathryn Antonacio, Michelle Lipovski, Gabi Natale, Emma Veon] finished second in its head race between two Garden State rivals. Holy Spirit took top honors in 5:13.84, the Mount was second in 5:15.47, and next came Montclair, in 5:22.17.

Largely unfamiliar with this style of competition, Mount St. Joseph’s large flock of ninth graders did themselves proud. Out of a total of 33 freshman and novice eights, all three boatloads of Magic rookies produced times in the top eight.

The novice eights were first up, and Mount “A” [Izzy Mina (cox), MaryKate Ciolko (stroke), Caroline Timoney, Harriett Blatney, Aydin McPhilemy, Gia Hunt, Riley Gorman, McKenna Matthews, Nora Hogan] placed first-in-class with a time of 5:24.31 that was better than all but one of the times that came out of the freshman eight category. The Magic’s novice “B” boat [Sofia Bernal (cox), Maureen McGreevey (stroke), Laurel Chung, Aine Playdon, Maddy Kerr, Eva Timoney, Jess Webb, Emily Lubinski, Hailey Goodyear] earned a number three ranking in 5:36.33.

In the freshman eight division, Mount St. Joe [Katie Greed (cox), Julia Woodrow (stroke), Katie Edling, Maddie Niekelski, Eileen McKenna, Claire Broderick, Lauren Kiefner, Shayne McKernan, Bryn McLaughlin] logged the third-best time of 5:27.87, behind Archbishop Carroll (5:23.71) and Merion Mercy (5:24.95).

This coming weekend most of the Mounties will head out on their annual road trip to the Saratoga (N.Y.) Invitational, and they’ll be back on the Schuylkill for the City Championships on the first of May.

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