In the Mount St. Joseph junior four, Eva Timoney (left) and Aileen Mansfield (both Norwood Fontbonne Academy alums) celebrate at the finish line after winning the silver medal. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

At the Stotesbury Cup Regatta last weekend, Mount St. Joseph had all of its eight boats advance out of the time trials on Friday and into the semifinal round. Five of these Magic vessels went through to the finals on Saturday afternoon, and at the end of the day the Mount came home with four medals, three silver and one bronze.

Mount St. Joseph lacked the Midas touch this year, even though three of its finalists last weekend had won gold medals at the Philadelphia City Championships two weeks earlier. The Stotesbury is the nation's longest-running and largest high school regatta, and most of the boats that troubled the Magic came from out-of-state, although one did hail from close to home.

The Mount's senior (or varsity) eight was the bronze medalist, finishing just over a second after runner-up Walt Whitman High School from Bethesda, Md. and about four ticks behind gold medalist National Cathedral Prep, from Washington, D.C. The MSJ flagship's line-up is a relatively young one this spring, consisting of three seniors (coxswain Shannon LoStracco, six seat Grace Comerford, and five seat Alex Natale), three juniors (two seat Cathryn Antonacio, bow Gabi Natale - Alex's sister, and three seat Brynn Pelletier) and three sophomores (seven seat Katie Edling, four seat Gia Hunt, and stroke Caroline Timoney).

The junior (or JV) eight won the silver medal as it hit the line a little under two seconds behind Saratoga Springs High School, and here the Mount crew consisted of Abby Schwenger, Julia Woodrow, Julia Flynn, Katie Hallahan, Lauren Kiefner, Emily Lubinski, Claire Broderick, Sam Cordero, Eileen McKenna. All of these rowers will be back next year; a JV or junior eight isn't allowed to contain any seniors.

The Magic's third gold medalist from the City Championships, the lightweight eight, also finished second at Stotesbury with its crew of Maddie Walsh, Karsen Healy, Emma Veon, Brooke Gimaro, Molly Whalen, Erica Arnold, Emma French, Maddie Curran, and Maddie Sandquist. They arrived at the finish just under three seconds behind a familiar rival and fellow member of the Athletic Association of Catholic Academies, Merion Mercy.

In the light eight, French, Gimaro, Veon, and Whalen are seniors, while the other five are all juniors.

While eights have traditionally been the main focus of the Mount program, the school's fours have become successful in recent years, and last Saturday a silver medal was claimed by the junior four (Sofia Bernal, Kerry Faust, Aileen Mansfield, Eva Timoney, Katelynn Clement). The winner here was Lower Merion High School, the fastest boat in this class all spring.

Just after noon on Friday, the Mount lightweight eight won its time trial by more than six seconds over number two Merion, and by 21 seconds over the third-place crew. Because of the low number of entries overall in this category, the top six boats in the trials moved directly into the final round on Saturday afternoon.

All of the other Mount bouts would have to qualify and then participate in a semifinal round to try and reach the medal races. The first to row was the freshman eight (Lauren Walsh, Grace Morrow, Libby Donahue, Julia Ianieri, Mae Sweeney, Meghan Scheffey, Alex Lerro, Lauren Vesey, Anna Murphy), which was fourth in the time trials out of 40 entries. Filtering into the third of the three semifinal races in their event, the MSJ ninth graders placed second and graduated to the final round.

There was only one other Magic crew that had its semifinal race on Friday afternoon, the junior four. They had started out by qualifying third in a whopping field of 71 competitors. The Mounties then won the third of the three semifinals and posted the fastest time overall thanks partly to a challenge from Maryland's Holton Arms School.

Putting up the fastest qualifying time on Friday, the Mount junior eight was in the very first race on Saturday morning. They won easily in the first of the three semifinals, although Saratoga logged a slightly faster time as it won the third flight.

Mount St. Joe's lightweight four had been successful all spring, but Stotesbury would attract many new and talented out-of-town rivals, including a very fast boat from Ontario's E.L. Crossley Secondary School, which would win the gold medal by 19 seconds. The Mount (Katie Greed, Shayne McKernan, MaryKate Ciolko, Nora Hogan, Hailey Goodyear) was ninth in the time trials and then missed the finals by one spot, coming in third in semifinal number three.

Unfortunately for Magic fans, the next two semifinalists for Mount St. Joseph would also come up a little short of the final round. On Friday, the second eight (Izzy Mina, Sam Altomare, Michelle Lipovsky, Harriett Blatney, Celene Mina, Olivia Snakard, Aydin McPhilemy, Riley Gorman, Paige Comtois) ranked seventh in the time trials, while the senior four (Gabby Ford, Maureen McGreevey, Jess Webb, Aine Playdon, Laurel Chung) was 12th in a large starting field of 57.

The second eight needed to come in third or higher in its Saturday semifinal in order to advance, but landed in fourth place. The senior four, which actually contains an all-sophomore crew, was fifth in its semi section.

At the end of the morning, the last MSJ boat to make the finals was the senior eight. After qualifying second, .32 seconds behind National Cathedral Prep, the Magic won the second of the three semifinal bouts. Winning the other two races, NCP and Walt Whitman were each a little faster than the Mount, as they would prove to be when the three crews went head-to-head in the finals.

The youngest Mounties would perform first in the medal round, and in the freshman eight it was pretty much a one-horse race for the gold, with Saratoga winning by six seconds over Ocean City High School. The Mount was the only Pennsylvania crew on the course, and came in fifth behind bronze medalist Walt Whitman and fourth-place T.C. Williams (the "Remember The Titans" school from Virginia) and ahead of Montclair (N.J.) High School.

The junior four was the cream of the Lower Merion High School girls' fleet (the only finalist and one of two qualifiers) and the crew capped a strong spring season with a Stotesbury gold medal. The Mount, which had also been runner-up to the Aces at Citys, got a bit closer this time, narrowing the gap at the finish from eight seconds to five. Trailing the Magic were bronze medalist Egg Harbor Township (N.J.), Holton Arms, Branksome Hall from Toronto, and Virginia's Great Bridge High School.

Mount St. Joseph's junior eight had been a major force on the Schuylkill all spring, but in the Stotes final they were runner-up to another one of Saratoga's strong crews. The New York power's varsity boat usually doesn't appear at this regatta because it often conflicts with the school's senior prom, but 'Toga is almost always a factor at the Scholastic Nationals on Memorial Day weekend.

The Magic was second by 1.84 seconds, and both boats were far ahead of the rest of the field. The last four were led by bronze medalist Washington-Lee High School of Virginia, which came in almost six seconds after MSJ. The other schools were Radnor High, Merion Mercy, and Maryland's Winston Churchill High School.

Merion Mercy's lightweight eight had been nipping at the Mount's heels when the Magic won gold at the City Championship in early May, and at Stotes the Golden Bears capped a solid race with a convincing sprint that had them timed in 4:57.01 to Mount St. Joseph's 4:59.96.

Mount St. Joe varsity coach Mike McKenna observed, "The lightweights didn't have their best performance, and they can improve upon what they did in that race."

Behind Merion and the Mount, bronze Medalist Yorktown High was well back at 5:08.39, and was followed by fellow Virginians Lake Braddock Secondary School, as well as Ocean City and Washington's Sidwell Friends.

McKenna said of his lights, "They did what they should've done, and they certainly didn't just go through the motions, but I told them that, to me, it didn't look like a championship race, with the urgency associated with that."

The Mount senior eight, while quite successful on the whole this season, was not the seasoned group of 2016. Late in the season, even between the City Championships and Stotesbury, some minor tweaks were made to the order in the boat.

"They're a very young crew and they're still figuring things out about themselves," McKenna explained.

National Cathedral Prep, the fastest boat in time trials, was fastest at the end of the regatta, too, visibly taking command of the race as they and the Mount plied the middle of the racecourse. At the end Walt Whitman, inside of the others in lane two, got by the Mount also. NCP had the gold medal in 4:55.78, Whitman the silver in 4:58.97, and Mount St. Joe the bronze in five minutes flat.

"The varsity had a very good race; they were just outgunned," McKenna remarked. "They were happy with their race, and I was pretty happy with it, as well. They're still developing and they can pick up some speed just in the last few weeks of the season. They've been on an upward trajectory all spring."