Mount crew faces tough rivals at Nationals

Posted 6/13/16

by Tom Utescher

As four Mount St. Joseph Academy crews prepared to race in the U.S. Rowing Youth National Championships at New Jersey’s Mercer Lake last Friday, conditions were sunny with low …

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Mount crew faces tough rivals at Nationals

Posted

by Tom Utescher

As four Mount St. Joseph Academy crews prepared to race in the U.S. Rowing Youth National Championships at New Jersey’s Mercer Lake last Friday, conditions were sunny with low humidity and temperatures in the comfortable 70’s. So what possibly would be wrong with the weather from a rower’s perspective?

The answer was – wind. Gusty conditions aren’t uncommon on this Garden State race course (located between Trenton and Princeton), and winds that had caused the cancellation of Thursday practices had not abated by Friday morning. They caused a three-hour delay due to concern for their effect on the lighter boats (singles, doubles, and pairs), and ultimately the entire regatta would be shortened from three to two days.

Through most of the spring season, Mount St. Joe rowers compete against other crews from individual high schools, but the U.S. Rowing regatta features powerful club crews that field boats with athletes from a number of different institutions. With this large, deep talent pool, they make for formidable opponents. The club crews also routinely compete on 2000-meter courses like the one at Mercer Lake, while the Mount engages in 1500-meter races in most of the scholastic regattas.

Unfortunately, as they crossed back over the Pennsylvania border while returning home from this year’s event, the Mounties didn’t set off any medal detectors. The Magic’s best results came from the lightweight four and lightweight eight, which both finished fourth in the “B” finals. While the top six boats overall race in the “A” finals, numbers seven through 12 compete in the B races, so in effect, the Magic were 10th overall in both categories.

There were also “C” finals races, and here Mount St. Joseph’s open-weight four placed third (with only four participants, there were no medals awarded here).

The Mount’s varsity eight (referred to at USR’s as the women’s youth eight) fell victim to one element of the schedule changes, the elimination of the repêchage stage. The “reps” give boats that don’t place among the top crews in the initial heats a second chance to feed back into the semifinals, and when they were cancelled, the regatta became a one-and-done affair for rowers who didn’t perform at their best in the opening round.

In each of the four heats in the youth eight, crews now needed to place now lower than fourth to continue on to either the semifinals or the “C” finals. In the Mount’s heat, the last crew to advance was number four New Trier (Ill.) High School in a time of 6:39.604, while the Magic came in sixth in 6:46.349, behind Sammamish Rowing Association (6:44.419) a club crew from Redmond, Wash.

The overall winner for the second year in a row was Connecticut-based Saugatuck Rowing Club, and it turned out that neither the A nor B finals included any single-school boats.

Back in May, Mount St. Joseph’s lightweight eight [Shannon LoStracco (cox), Julia Comerford (stroke), Vicki Matsinger, Shannon Hughes, Erica Arnold, Molly Whalen, Brooke Gimaro, Katelin Cordero, and Rachel Sandquist] had won gold medals at the Philadelphia City Championships and the Stotesbury Cup Regatta. The varsity eight [Lindsey Maiale (cox), Erin McGreevey (stroke), Christina Knox, Cait Hagan, Maddie Lauinger, Alex Natale, Maddie Carlton, Grace Comerford, Alex Uzzo] had also won at City’s, and then earned a bronze medal at Stotesbury.

The lightweight four [Olivia Kylander (cox), Paige Comtois (stroke), Maddy Sandquist, Maddie Curran, Emma French] had spearheaded a breakout season for MSJ fours, taking the gold at the City Championships and capturing a silver medal at Stotes.

On Memorial Day weekend, both MSJ lightweight boats earned gold medals at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America Regatta, which includes only single-school crews.

In addition to the light four, the Mount also raced an open-weight four last weekend at the Youth Nationals, but it did not contain the same athletes that had performed as a varsity four throughout the rest of the season. There is no junior varsity category of any kind at the U.S.

Rowing event, and the Magic decided to extract coxswain Abby Schwenger and rowers Gabi Natale (stroke), Michelle Lipovsky, Cath Antonacio and Emma Veon from their strong JV eight boat to race the four at Mercer Lake.

As you’d expect, many college coaches were on hand to observe the nation’s best scholastic crew athletes. Fordham University assistant Katie Lane caught up with some of the four MSJ seniors already committed to her school, Maiale, McGreevey, Julia Comerford, and Grace Little. A new member of the Stanford University staff, Kelsie Chaudoin, connected with the Mount’s Lauinger, who signed with the Cardinal last fall.

After the wind delay on Friday that stretched from a little after 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM, Mount racing got underway with the lightweight eight heats. The Magic’s victories at both Stotesbury and the SRAA regatta had been close ones, and they knew even more powerful rivals would await them in New Jersey. In one of four heats they finished second to eventual champion Saugatuck, and their time ranked sixth overall.

This was a clear indication that the semifinals would be a tough go, and that was certainly the case. In the second semifinal section on Saturday morning, the Californians from Newport Aquatic Center snapped up the last “A” final spot, finishing third in 7:03.931 ahead of the number four Magic (7:05.509).

The Mounties also placed fourth in the B final that afternoon, where early leader Saratoga (N.Y.) was overtaken by a crew from Marina del Rey, Calif. for the win (6:53.376). In the last 50 meters the Magic squeezed past the Atlanta Juniors and then held off the Georgians for fourth place, 7:02.228 to 7:02.382.

The Magic’s light four found itself in a pitched battle at the end of its very first race on Friday. Fighting for second place in their heat, the Mounties were edged out by 0.136 seconds by Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Rowing Association. They still advanced to the semifinals, but here a sixth-place showing consigned them to the B final.

The Magic fared better later in the day, climbing up to fourth with a time of 7:39.364 that positioned them about two seconds off of the medal stand. Their close rival in the heats, Three Rivers, won the B final.

The regular four from Mount St. Joseph placed fourth in their heat race, and along with the fourth-place finishers in the other three heats, they were funneled directly into the C final on Saturday afternoon. Here they placed third in 7:40.405, half-a-second behind number two Saugatuck.

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