Elizabeth Wescott and Bri Owen of Germantown Academy (left) lead Penn Charter’s Sally Stanley and Kelsey White near the end of the girls senior double final. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption] by Tom Utescher A flotilla of 41 vessels from Germantown Academy, Germantown Friends, Penn Charter, and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy were part of a much larger naval force out on the Schuylkill last weekend. The Patriots, Tigers, Quakers, and Blue Devils were joined by 943 other boats in the nation’s oldest and largest high school rowing extravaganza, the 90th annual Stotesbury Cup Regatta. Named after financier and philanthropist Edward T. Stotesbury, whose fabulous mansion was located in Wyndmoor, the gathering attracts high school crews from as far away as Texas, Florida, and Canada. GFS sent 12 of its watercraft into the fray; the other three area schools each made 10 entries, but an injury caused SCH to drop out of one event. A Stotesbury medal of any variety is a treasured award, and the only two claimed by area scullers this year were two bronze medals won by Germantown Academy. In the first half-hour of the final round, junior Nick Moeller and sophomore Isaac Wilkins came in third in the boys junior double class, and in one of the last races of the weekend, Syracuse-bound senior Katie Aemisegger claimed the bronze medal in the girls senior single. GA had two other boats make the finals, while Germantown Friends sent three crews into the medal round and Penn Charter and SCH each had one boat make it through. Every boat in the regatta started out in time trials in the morning or early afternoon on Friday. All the crews in a given category were sent off from the starting line one-by-one and then graded on time. In a few cases where there were very few contestants, the top six finishers went straight to the final round. For the most part, categories with under 30 entries sent 12 boats on into two six-lane semifinal races, while in events where 30 or more signed up, 18 schools advanced into three semi’s. GFS had seven vessels make it through this initial test, while GA had six qualifiers, SCH had five, and PC had four. Each school had a boat miss the cut-off by just one place; GA in the girls senior quad (Genna Feirson, Caroline Klebanoff, Julia McKernan, Grace Loughlin), GFS in the boys junior double (Henry Ziegler, Seve Reitano), Penn Charter in the boys lightweight double (Mitch Sibson, Tristan Laurencio), and SCH in the girls junior double (Jessica Penn, Eliza Brody). For some of the boats that qualified in the morning, there was more racing late in the afternoon in the first group of semifinal square-offs. In the junior doubles, the top two boats in each of three semifinals for girls would reach the finals, while in two boys races the top three in each would advance. GA’s Moeller and Wilkins moved on with a second-place result, but on the girls’ side two crews ended their regatta run. Racing together in the third semifinal, Penn Charter (Madeline Whitehead, Maria Perry) placed fourth and Germantown Friends (Laila Okeson, Lily Zukin) was sixth. At the very end of Friday’s schedule, there were two semifinal races for each gender in the lightweight doubles. Third in their contest, GA’s Lindsay Naber and Nina Tang moved on to the finals, but for the boys, it was the end of the line for three area tandems. GFS (Gabe Sher, Eric Shen) was fifth in the first semi, while in the second SCH (Hudson Smith, Damian Betancourt) missed the finals by one spot with a fourth-place showing, and GA (Carter Seggev, Decker Wentz) came in sixth. Local rowers resumed semifinal racing on Saturday morning, starting with three girls junior quads all competing in the second of two flights. The GFS Tigers (Sam Pancoe, Katie Maguire, Maya Esberg, Ellie Cheung) placed third to make the cut, but SCH (Sofia Djerassi, Grace Tasman, Mia Humphreys, Paige Aloise) and GA (Emma Rapp, Mikayla Fassler, Rachel Kliger, Katie Hallahan) dropped out of the running, coming in fifth and sixth, respectively. In separate semifinal contests in the girls senior double, the duos from GA (Bri Owen, Elizabeth Wescott) and PC (Kelsey White, Sally Stanley) each made the finals by finishing second, but in a third race in between the Patriots and Quakers, a fifth-place outcome sent home SCH (Hope Lee, Grace Youngren). Also coming in fifth in a semifinal bout, PC’s Gordon Robertson and Cesar Centeno bid farewell to Stotesbury’s senior double event. Third place or better was needed here, and in the other semifinal race GFS got second with James Wright and Andrea Berghella. A second-place showing in the senior quad put the SCH girls (Emma Lutz, Amanda Miller, Gabi Sciarrotta, Lisa Burckhardt) into the medal round, but their male counterparts (Riley Bakes, Will Newbold, Michael Wrede, Callum Brazier) reached the end of their tether, placing fourth. After initially climbing into a senior (or varsity) single in the middle of the Manny Flick “regular season” series of races, GA’s Aemisegger had been a force on the Schuylkill and had won the City Championships. However, Stotesbury always attracts some strong singles scullers from the north, and when she mixed it up with some athletes from upstate New York and Ontario, the Patriot senior placed ninth in the time trials. She bounced back with a win in the third of three semifinals, making her way into the medal round. In the senior singles and eights categories this year, Stotesbury introduced a “petite final” race that preceded the regular (or “grand”) final. A staple of collegiate and international regattas, the “petite” gives semifinalists number seven through 12 a chance to race again. To get into these races, you had to place third or fourth in one of the three semifinal flights, and two GFS seniors did it. Addie McKenzie, the City Championships silver medalist, was fourth in her race, while on the boys’ side a first-year rower, Bix Komita Moussa, placed third. A younger but more seasoned sculler, Penn Charter junior Stephen Flemming, came in fourth in a separate semifinal to also make the petite event. One GFS boat, the girls freshman quad (Andy Regli (stroke), Isabel Ortega, Sophie Henisz, Ayla Malefakis), got to skip the semifinal stage entirely. A total of just 11 crews entered their event, and with a fourth-place showing in Friday’s time trials, the Tigers became one of six quads which were sent directly to the finals. Shortly after the final round racing began at 1:00 PM, GA’s Moeller and Wilkins found themselves chasing two junior doubles from the northlands. In a duel for the gold medal in adjacent middle lanes, Augustine Classical Academy of Mechanicville, N.Y. (near Saratoga) won in five minutes and nine seconds, ahead of a twosome from Blessed Trinity Secondary School in Grimsby, Ontario. Just to the outside in lane five, the Patriots couldn’t catch these first two, but they held in for the bronze medal in 5:17.58, coming in three seconds ahead of North Arlington (N.J.) High School. There was a ‘toga party at the front of the field in the girls freshman quad, with Conestoga High School (5:29.19) winning the gold medal over Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) High. Alongside Peter’s Island with a few hundred meters to go, it looked like the GFS quartet would be battling for the bronze with Ridgewood (N.J), but the Tigers caught a crab and the Jersey crew took third in 5:34.89. Germantown got things sorted out in time to finish fourth (5:39.35), four seconds ahead of the Texans from Hockaday School. The final field in the lightweight double was spread out. Saratoga won comfortably in 5:38.67, while the GA girls, out in the funky waters of lane six, managed a fifth-place finish in 5:55.43 ahead of Ridley (from Ontario, not Delaware County). Along boathouse row, Germantown Friends’ Andrea Berghella and James Wright glide back to Vesper Boat Club while their GFS schoolmate Bix Komita Moussa (background) heads upriver to race. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption] Another out-of-town school with a familiar name, the Episcopal from Dallas, Texas, won the junior quad in 5:15.39, and in the far lane, Germantown Friends was a close sixth in 5:31.43, seventh-tenths of a second behind Poughkeepsie High School. Then, for the third race in a row, a local school found itself out in lane six and had a similar outcome. Virginia’s St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School won the girls senior double final in 5:34.79. GA’s Owen and Westcott wound up fourth racing in lane five (5:48.48), about four seconds behind bronze medalist Ridgewood. Over in aisle six, Penn Charter’s Stanley and White had been trying to catch the Patriots next door, but across the course in lane one, Poughkeepsie managed to slip into the fifth place spot ahead of the Quakers (5:51.64 to 5:51.94). The Canadians from E.L. Crossley won the boys senior double by seven seconds over the second-place twosome. GFS was in it for the bronze against Roman Catholic, but Wright and Berghella could not quite catch the Cahillites (5:06.59), and landed in fourth place (5:08.05). SCH also finished just off the medal stand in its girls senior quad contest, coming in fourth (5:16.36) behind Inter-Ac League rival Episcopal Academy (third in 5:13.73). Conestoga won this one in 5:08.74. In the petite final of the girls singles, Germantown Friends’ McKenzie (who had qualified 11th on Friday) ended up seventh overall as she won her last race by three seconds in 6:05.31, a time which would have positioned her fifth in the grand final. In the boys’ petite, the experience of PC’s Flemming showed as he came in second (5:41.46) while the Tigers’ Komita Moussa placed fourth (5:43.66). During the progression of the girls senior single, GA’s Aemisegger had improved her standing from ninth in qualifying to first in one of the semifinals, but her time in the semi’s was only the fifth-fastest. In the final she bypassed two more rivals to claim the bronze medal in 6:03.39. The gold and silver medals went to the two schools who’d finished ahead of her Patriot teammates in the boys junior double. Elisa Vandersloot of Blessed Trinity won convincingly in 5:56.81, and Emma Hopkins of Augustine Classical took the silver medal in 6:01.16. Aemisegger, still in her second month racing a single, came in ahead of Gwen Goodyear of Southampton (N.Y) High School (6:04.56) and two other finalists.