More rookie rowers in the mix at second Manny Flick

by Tom Utescher
Posted 3/29/23

Last Sunday's second Manny Flick event featured the first gender split schedule of the 2023 season, with all of the girls' races in the morning, and the boys in the afternoon.

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More rookie rowers in the mix at second Manny Flick

Posted

Last Sunday's second Manny Flick event featured the first gender split schedule of the 2023 season, with all of the girls' races in the morning, with the boys' contests following in the afternoon. The weather was warmer and a bit less windy than the first Flick on March 19, and more freshman and novice rowers were sent into competition by their respective schools.

Early on, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy saw one of its girls' freshman quads claim victory in that class, with the crew made up of Charlotte Trayes (stroke), Iris Dobeck, Ariya Goswami, and Grian O'Connor. In her JV single, Penn Charter's Grace Agosto placed second in the second heat of the event, with the fourth-fastest time overall.

A heat victory and the top overall time in the JV double belonged to Lucy Yanella (stroke) and Lila Donovan of Germantown Friends, and the Tigers' JV quad (Cara Appleberry - stroke, Rebecca Rasmussen, Natalie Lau, Leah Cornejo) finished second in the fastest heat of the event. In the other heat, Olivia Hayes, Alex Cross, Emma Schwartz, and Dora Ward placed first with a time about 10 seconds off of the number posted by GFS.

Mount St. Joseph Academy saw its first action in the varsity four event, with two boats racing in the first of three flights. The previous week, Merion Mercy had won each of the two flights offered in this category, but those boats were staffed by members of the Golden Bears' varsity eight, which was put back together for the second Flick.

The Mount meanwhile, had seen the return of some rowers who are also members of the swim team and had only just gotten out of the pool following postseason competition. The Magic put together a third eight for Manny Flick number two, and rearranged its fours.

Winning the first flight were Angelina Baker (cox), Molly Chipman (stroke), Maya McCottry, Anna Fedders, and Zoe Truitt. In second place, five seconds back, were Kylie Reichert (cox), Michaela Kowalski (stroke), Julia Fede, Alexia Levine, and Maddy Wynn. The second heat in this class proved to be the fastest, though.

In the varsity quad, the faster heat was the first, and in the next race SCH (Madeline Percy (stroke), Ava Chavez, Caitlin Keough, Sam Simon) won while recording the fourth-best time overall. Second in this flight was Germantown Academy, with a vessel powered by Aisosa Idahosa (stroke), Ryleigh Dougherty, Sarah Beth Sandifer, and Olivia Shafer.

Next down the course was the first section of the girls' varsity eight, won comfortably by the Mount's actual V-8 (cox - Chloe Van de Meulebroecke, stroke - Kelly Cleary, Kathryn Sponseller, Caroline Johnson, Grace Hartzell, Clara Pagano, Nina Rowello, Vanessa Ksiazek, Ellie Fazio). Merion was the runner-up, a fraction of a second ahead of the second Mount St. Joe boat in the race. The was, in essence, the MSJ second eight (Sarah Mark - cox, Anna Ledwith - stroke, Alexa Konowal, Kari Prosperi, Meghan Krumenacher, Alexa Kennedy, Norah McGlynn, Molly Maher, Aoife Meacle).

After a break at midday, the boys' part of the program got underway. Here, GA, GFS, and SCH all had entries in the JV quad class.  Conestoga High School posted the best overall time as it won the first of the two heats, while Germantown Friends (Anand Rajagopalan - stroke, Shachar Pinto, Julian Cheung, Jasper Furnas) logged the second-fastest time as it won the second heat.

SCH's "A" boat, with Andrew Saunders (stroke), Ward Dobeck, Noah Coomes, and Keith Angell, finished second in the opening heat.

In the varsity single, GA came up with two entries by splitting up the tandem from its varsity double that raced in the first Flick. The first heat was the fastest by a good margin, and in the second race GA's Haiden Bonczek won with the fourth-best time overall. His erstwhile partner in the double, Max Goldman, placed third in the same heat.

In the varsity double, Germantown Friends (Aidan Cusack (stroke), Josh Cappiello) was the class of the field, finishing 15 seconds ahead of its closest rival to win the first flight. The runner-up was the Penn Charter double propelled by James Glomb (stroke) and Mac Haines.