Sun greets area rowers in first Manny Flick races

Posted 3/18/19

On St. Patrick’s Day, Mounties (from left) Eileen McKenna, Maureen McGreevey and Aydin McPhilemy parade down the Schuylkill in the MSJ 2nd eight. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption] by Tom Utescher …

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Sun greets area rowers in first Manny Flick races

Posted
On St. Patrick’s Day, Mounties (from left) Eileen McKenna, Maureen McGreevey and Aydin McPhilemy parade down the Schuylkill in the MSJ 2nd eight. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

by Tom Utescher

It was cold at the outset and blustery at times, but there’s been much worse weather for the opening day of crew competition than area rowers experienced last Sunday along the Kelly Drive course on the Schuylkill. None of the programs (Germantown Academy, Germantown Friends, Mount St. Joseph, Penn Charter and Springside Chestnut Hill) sent out novice rowers for the first Manny Flick/Horvat series race of 2019, a wise decision especially in light of the occasional gusts of wind on this clear, sunny day.

After local crews sat out the freshman and novice events, GFS scored an impressive victory in the boys’ JV single race, where Alec Sandroni crossed the line 19 seconds ahead of the runner-up.

Although Penn Charter’s girls’ JV double (Alyssa Neducsin, Julia Veith) placed third out of four boats in its flight, the times in this race were better than in the second flight, where SCH (Iris Alex, Ellie McLelland) was edged out for the win by Villa Maria by two one-hundredths of a second.

In their varsity double, Penn Charter’s Ryan Milkman and Matt Groshens were the last Quakers to come down the course on Sunday. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

Racing for Mount St. Joe got underway with three JV fours seeded into two different flights. In the first section, Mount “B” (Ella Valencia – cox, Brigit Ferry – stroke, Maddy Donahue, Ilsa Maguire, Hannah Rossmeisl) was the winner and the “C” boat (Arlyn Kryst – cox, Emma Dougherty – stroke, Olivia Guza, Emma Del Vecchio, Sarah Gorovitz) was the runner-up. Catholic Academies rival Villa Joseph Marie won the second (slower) flight while Mount “A” (Caroline Donahue – cox, Ainsley Morasco – stroke, Moira Ferry, Julia Norton, Luca Bixby) placed second.

Next, the boys of SCH took second place in their flight of the JV quad, with a line-up consisting of Will Percy, Edward Gu, Yofi Guy and Jake Scholl.

Mount St. Joe then registered a close win against familiar league rival Merion Mercy in the JV eight, with the Magic vessel staffed by Lauren Walsh (cox), Kaitlyn Squadrito (stroke), Ruby French, Claire Hanycz, Eileen McKenna, Julia Ianieri, Sydney McKernan, Nora Broderick and Caitlyn Lawson.

A good showing was made by the lightweight doubles for the GFS Tigers. The female tandem of Isabel Mehta and Amory Park finished second, and in the boys’ event, Raz Allon and Finn Kassell Osborne won by five seconds over rivals from Roman Catholic.

Springside Chestnut Hill’s Theo Gregson would have time to warm up and dry off after his varsity quad race on Sunday. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

After a highly successful 2018 season, the SCH Blue Devils have returned their lightweight quad crew intact, and the quartet of Elliott Cunningham, Eliot Rusk, Gyre Jaeger and Ian McLelland started off the 2019 campaign with a win on Sunday.

Early in the varsity racing, there were strong performances for the Blue Devils, the Tigers and the GA Patriots in the two girls’ doubles flights.

Amber Stallworth and Nahla Turner won the first flight for SCH by almost six seconds over Agnes Irwin, although the times of the frontrunners were faster in the second race. Here, GA’s Margaret Horvat and Addy Campbell had slim edge on the GFS boat alongside the middle of Peter’s Island, but the Tigers’ Ortega sisters (sophomore Sophia and senior Isabel) came back to win by a little under four seconds.

Several boys and girls boats from the area in the varsity quad events showed that there’s still room for improvement. The best outcome was recorded by the GA boys (Ian Cummings, Dylan Robertson, Diego Carrasco, Derek Walkush) who placed third in the first of two flights.

In a varsity double for Germantown Academy (foreground), Addy Campbell (left) and Margaret Horvat race alongside Germantown Friends’ Ortega sisters, Isabel and Sophia. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

The last event with area entries was the girls’ varsity eight, where Mount St. Joseph lodged three boats among the top four places. Going under five minutes (4:59.93) the Magic’s true varsity eight (Katie Greed – cox, Maggie Newell – stroke, Katie Edling, Hannah Lemanowicz, Cate Van Stone, Riley Gorman, Mae Sweeney, Gia Hunt, Ena Altier) outsped Merion by seven seconds. Finishing third was the Mount “C” boat, which was actually the “second” eight staffed by Sofia Bernal (cox), Julia Woodrow (stroke), Aine Playdon, Emily Lubinski, Eva Timoney, Caroline Timoney, Aydin McPhilemy, Maureen McGreevey and Eileen McKenna.

The “B” boat listed for the Magic was the Mount lightweight eight (Izzy Mina – cox, Kaylee Dougherty – stroke, Claire Broderick, Nora Hogan, Caroline Kyle, MaryKate Ciolko, Harriett Blatney, Izzy McCafferty, Nicole Uzzo), which came in fourth in the field of six.

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