As this same SCH crew did in 2018, the Blue Devils’ lightweight quad is putting together a string of victories in the Manny Flick races. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

by Tom Utescher

After a cancellation and then a detour to New Jersey in the last two scheduled Manny Flick regattas of March, boys from the crews at Germantown Academy, Germantown Friends, Penn Charter and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy were back racing on the Schuylkill last Sunday.

After the girls’ races finished a little after noon, the freshman and novice events for the boys got underway.

The GFS foursome of Nathan Fireman, Teddy Ryan, Aden Solomon and Otis Harrison put up the best time in the two flights of the novice quad, and the Penn Charter Quakers (Isaiah Woods-Kolsky, Jakob Lanfranco, Tyler Mangan, Billy Kopf) placed second in the same race as the Tigers.

In the faster of two flights in the freshman quad, Jack Stephenson, Charlie Miles, A.J. Topping and Sammy Meyer of Springside Chestnut Hill placed second and thus turned in the second fastest overall time.

Another second-place showing for SCH was engineered by Iven Bai and Edward Gu in the first flight of the JV double, while the best time in the category was turned in by the winners of the second flight, Germantown Academy’s Andreas Moeller and Alex Walkush. In the last of the four flights in this event, Robert May and Jekeun Jung of GFS finished first with one of the faster times in the class.

Penn Charter rookie rowers venture down the Schuylkill in the Quakers’ novice quad. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

The SCH Blue Devils’ JV quad (Will Percy, Austin Youngren, Worth Osborne, Jake Scholl) came in third in their flight, just two one-hundredths of a second behind the second-place boat. First in their flight and second on time in the lightweight double were Raz Allon and Finn Kassell Osborne of GFS, even though the latter was not at 100 percent due to illness.

SCH’s lightweight quad remained on a roll, winning the lone flight in this category by five seconds with the tested crew of Elliott Cunningham, Eliot Rusk, Gyre Jaeger and Ian McLelland.

In the first of the varsity races, the Blue Devils’ Justin Xin edged out a rival from Roman Catholic to take third place in his flight of the varsity single. In the second flight, Germantown Friends’ Alec Sandroni won with a time just one second off of the class standard.

Engaged in the fastest of three flights in the varsity double, the Tigers’ twosome of Doulin Appleberry and Owen Keim placed third. Their time was actually a little faster than that of the winners of the third flight, Penn Charter’s Cole Frieman and Matt Groshens.

The racing wrapped up for area crews in the varsity quad event, where boats from three different schools showed that they’ll have to raise their level if they hope to collect any hardware at the medal races in May.