Area rowers got out on the Schuylkill last Sunday for the first race in the annual Manny Flick/Horvat spring series. As usual, there was a limited program for the initial outing, but while the skies were overcast, the weather was relatively warm. There was a fairly stiff breeze at times, but everyone was off the water well before the wind really picked up in intensity later in the day.

Among the area programs, Penn Charter collected up the earliest wins. Local action opened with Ava Gonnella racing unopposed in the Girls' Varsity Single. In a five-boat field in the Girls' JV Double, the Quakers thrashed the competition. Hannah Aldinger and Liliana DeMartinis crossed the finish line half-a-minute ahead of second-place Shipley.

Next came some early success for Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. As in the girls double, the gap between first and second place in the Boys' JV Double was 30-some seconds, with the lads from SCH (Malin Lytle, Jiacheng Li) taking the win.

As expected, the first flight in the Girls' JV Quad was a closer race, so the nine-second victory posted by Springside (Charlotte Trayes, Elizabeth O'Brien, Iris Dobeck, Ariya Goswami) was impressive. There was a somewhat slower pace in the second flight in this event, which was won by Germantown Friends (Josie Hong-Goranin, Arielle Biron, Esme Baxter, Naomi Allon).

In the varsity racing, GFS (Lyla Conley, Lila Donovan) won the first flight in the Girls' Varsity Double, although Agnes Irwin proved a bit faster in the second section. Later on, Irwin blew everyone away in the Girls' Varsity Quad, with a respectable second place going to the SCH Blue Devils (Nadia Stockman, Emma Schwartz, Evelyn Seawright, Caitlin Keough).

In the Boy's Varsity Quad, third place was secured by GFS (Anand Rajagopalan, Jasper Furnas, Shachar Pinto, Alex Young), with the top two spots going to large all-boys schools Malvern Prep and Haverford.

Fairly early in the day, two Mount St. Joseph Academy boats raced in the same flight of the JV Four, placing third and fifth while crews from other Catholic Academies League schools nabbed the top two spots.

Near the end of the first Flick, the Magic entered three boats in the two flights of the Varsity Eight, their JV eight, their second eight, and their actual varsity eight.

Racing in the first flight, the JV boat (Alice Baker (cox), Kate Marsden (stroke), Addison Marques, Shay Gura, Olivia Weissman, Ella Kurek, Aubrey Sheehan, Elyse McGlynn, Addi Ross) recorded the fastest time of the three, at five minutes, 48.32 seconds. Here the Mounties were pushed by a boat from Ocean City High School, which came second in 5:52.46.

The two MSJ vessels in the second flight were really just racing one another. The regular V-8 (Kylie Reichert (cox), Katie Duffy (stroke), Marianna Rambo, Olivia Duffy, Addy Smith, Alexia Levine, Ava Smith, Vanessa Ksiazek, Maddie Kristel) won in 5:56.02, while the second eight (Sydney Fluke (cox), Molly Chipman (stroke), Zoe Nguyen, Eva Getty, Amelia McElroy, Ramsey Tabor, Ryan Salvitti, Maggie Mullaney, Zoe Truitt) finished second in 6:09.95. The third-place boat clocked in at 6:56.83.