Highly successful all season long, the Mount St. Joe jayvees celebrate their gold medal performance in the Junior Eight class at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Accustomed to trailering their boats every time they compete, the Mount St. Joseph Academy crew wasn’t bothered last weekend when the Stotesbury Cup Regatta was relocated to Camden’s Cooper River course. It was only the second time in the long history of the prestigious Stotesbury that it was moved off of the Schuykill River due to fast current and floating debris, and crews used to launching their vessels right out of their Boathouse Row quarters had to scramble to arrange transportation to New Jersey.

Even on the Cooper River, calmed by a dam in one location, rowers were subjected to rain much of the time, some of it quite heavy. The Mount St. Joe eights plowed through it all with aplomb, all five of them bringing home medals.

Powerful performers throughout the season, the lightweight eight and JV eight (called the Junior Eight here) won gold medals by a comfortable margin. The varsity (Senior) eight and the freshman eight both took silver, and the second eight came away with a bronze medal.

All entries at the regatta began by racing for time in qualifying heats on Friday. From there, some boats would advance directly to a six-boat final, while in some events with a large field of competitors, there was a semi-final stage on Saturday morning before the finals in the afternoon.

The three fours entered by the Mount were unable to advance out of the initial heats, but all five eights qualified easily.

The Magic freshmen had the top time in their category, although Maryland’s Walt Whitman High School was just over half-a-second behind. The Mount ninth-graders (Caroline Donahue, Izzy McCafferty, Kaylee Dougherty, Hannah Lemanowicz, Sydney McKernan, Cate Van Stone, Ena Altier, Maggie Newell, Olivia Guza) had won the gold medal at the Philadelphia City Championships two weeks earlier.

Two other gold medalists from that regatta were the Magic’s junior eight (Katie Greed, Julia Woodrow, Lauren Kiefner, Emily Lubinski, Eva Timoney, Riley Gorman, Mae Sweeney, Julia Ianieri, Eileen McKenna) and lightweight eight (Abby Schwenger, Karsen Healy, Maddie Sandquist, Lauren Vesey, Claire Broderick, Nora Hogan, Harriett Blatney, MaryKate Ciolko, Shayne McKernan).

The junior boat led the field in qualifying, timed six-and-a-half seconds ahead of the second-fastest vessel. The Mount is among the few schools that can turn out eight high quality lightweights on a consistent basis, and this year’s bunch has been dominant. They blew away the field in qualifying, nailing the top spot by almost 20 seconds.

A little later, the MSJ second eight (Izzy Mina, Grace Morrow, Aileen Mansfield, Katie Hallahan, Molly McKenna, Julia Flynn, Aine Playdon, Sam Cordero, Christie Faust) advanced easily with the second fastest time in the class.

The Mount senior (or varsity) eight had been switching things around in their boat trying to arrive at an alignment that really “clicked.” There had been some letdowns during the regular season and the boat had finished fourth at the city championships, but help was on the way thanks to a practice known as bucket-rigging.

In their first Stotesbury Cup Regatta, these Mount ninth-graders won the silver medal in the Freshman Eight event. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

This involves a disruption of the normal format of having alternating port and starboard rowers along the length of the boat. In this instance, two MSJ rowers who were seated one behind the other rowed on the port side, and two others in the same seating arrangement rowed starboard.

Often this is done when one side is overpowering the other and affecting a boat’s steering, but Mount varsity coach Mike McKenna explained, “In our case is was more for timing. I wanted to try a starboard stroke (the rower closest to the stern) and I was having a hard time keeping my port side rowing together. I thought the bucket might help their timing and it did seem to help some.”

In the stroke seat, in front of senior coxswain Maddie Walsh, was junior Katie Edling. In front of her, moving up toward the front of the boat, came

junior Caroline Timoney, seniors Cathryn Antonacio, Gabi Natale and Brynn Pelletier, juniors Gia Hunt and Aydin McPhilemy and senior Erica Arnold.

The result in the qualifiers was encouraging; the Mount’s time was third-fastest out of three-dozen entries in the senior eight, behind only the defending Stotesbury champ from Washington, National Cathedral Prep, and number two Walt Whitman.

After the qualifying heats, the Mount freshmen and the lightweight eight went directly into the finals. The junior eight and second eight were both seeded into one of two semifinal races, while in the senior category 18 boats moved into a semifinal round consisting of three six-boat contests. In the 12-boat semi’s, the top three from each race advanced, while only the first two crews could move on out of the 18-boat semifinals.

None of the MSJ boats had a problem getting past the semifinal segment. The junior eight cranked through to win the first semifinal race and put up the fastest time overall by 13 seconds. The second eight won the second semi, and was just a over a second off the pace set in the first semifinal race by National Cathedral Prep, which had been the quickest qualifier.

The senior eight bettered an already strong showing in qualifying, winning the third semifinal section with the best time overall. It was a nice springboard into the finals.

Remember the Titans? They were from Virginia’s T.C. Williams High School, whose freshman eight won the gold medal in that event as Saturday afternoon’s final round got underway. They went through on the outside in lane six, and two-and-a-half seconds later Mount St. Joe came up the middle in lane three to win the silver medal. The young Mounties were three seconds in front of a tight battle for the bronze, which Whitman won over Delaware’s St. Andrew’s School.

The only crew to challenge the Mount in the junior eight final was Montclair (N.J.) High School, but the Magic still won comfortably in the center of the field. Their times were 5:27.49 to 5:31.72, and the bronze medal boat from Ontario was almost 10 seconds behind Montclair.

Silver medalists at Stotesbury, the Mount St. Joseph senior eight made some changes in their boat order work in their favor at the prestigious regatta. (Photo by Gary Edling)

In the lightweight eight final, it was the Titans who would remember the Mounties. The MSJ lights powered to the gold medal in 5:27.08, and silver medalist T.C. Williams floated across the finish line in 5:42.89. Florida’s Edgewater High School came in another second behind Williams for the bronze.

In contrast to the varsity eight, Coach McKenna noted, “the lightweights’ line-up has stayed pretty much the same since we first made up the boatings back in February. I didn’t expect them to be this strong, but they are, so I’m enjoying it.”

A fourth medal was soon in the Mount’s possession as the second eight captured the bronze in its final. Less than a hundred meters from the finish it looked as if Bethesda-Chevy Chase was trying to challenge for third in an inside lane, but the Magic did not let down and finished three seconds ahead of BCC. National Cathedral took the gold medal and Whitman secured the silver.

In the senior eight final near the end of the proceedings the Magic didn’t get off the starting line quite the way they wanted to.

“In the first 500 meters they were down to a couple of boats,” McKenna said. “Then they calmed down and executed. Afterwards, they recognized that if they’d done a little better in that first 500, they could’ve been right there with National Cathedral. They still can get more speed out of the boat.”

The Washington crew won in 5:19.25 and the Mount clocked in at 5:21.98, beating out Walt Whitman (5:23.50) for the silver medal. In fourth through sixth were Moorestown (N.J.) High School, T.C. Williams and Merion Mercy Academy, respectively.

Of his varsity, McKenna said, “they achieved the goal of going through a three-race regatta with a consistent technical effort. I was happy with that, and I think they were happy to win the silver medal.”

While Mount St. Joseph has had some banner years at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta in the past, McKenna said that to his recollection this is the first time that the crew had each of its eights come home with a medal.