PHILADELPHIA – The Ocean City High School crew team rowed away from the prestigious Stotesbury Cup Regatta with silver and bronze medals Saturday.
The Stotesbury Cup is the world’s largest high school regatta, rowed on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and features teams from the U.S. and Canada.
The junior eight won silver, finishing just over a second behind first-place Mount Saint Joseph, which won in 4 minutes, 48.32 seconds. Ocean City’s Aubrey Schlembach, Margot Swift, Marin Pearce, Marina Zappone, Anna Rice, Jada Smith, Victoria Sakhno, Reese Hemberger and Kailyn Kelly finished in 4:49.66.
The girls lightweight four earned bronze with their third-place finish in 5:24.88. Ridley College won in 5:23.35 and Montclair was second in 5:23.89.
Rowing in the lightweight four were Ava Ryan, Coryn Driscoll, Ava Ruh, Marissa Trostle and Abigail Smith.
“We have a white board that we write up workouts and on that board has a countdown of how many days till the Stotesbury Cup Regatta,” girls head coach Colin Stewart said.
“Stotesbury and Scholastic Nationals are the two races we emphasize and prepare for every day for the whole year. Winning a Stotesbury title is one of the greatest achievements in this sport. For a team of 19 upperclassmen to walk away with 14 medals at this level of competition is an incredible achievement and a testament to how meticulous these athletes have been approaching achieving these goals. We’re a small team but we row with a lot of heart and a lot of determination,” Stewart said.
Both boats had to race in time trials to winnow the field to 18 entrants for the semifinals.
Stewart said the junior eight had to fight through a mid-race collision and placed second in their time trial, beating 30 other boats and were only 1.3 seconds off of first place. He said the lightweight four qualified directly to finals with a third-place finish in the time trial 1.5 seconds off of first and 1 second off of second place.
Because of severe thunderstorms and rainfall, flash flood warnings and debris in the river cancelled the finals and medals were awarded based on the time trials.
The Raiders will compete at the Scholastic National Championships on the Cooper River in Pennsauken this coming Friday and Saturday.
City Championships
At the Philadelphia City Championships earlier this month, the junior eight took third place and the lightweight four finished third. In addition, the novice eight also finished in third place to give the OCHS girls crew team three sets of medals.
In the novice eight were Kailyn Kelly, Maddie Aragno, Kendal Barnes, Bella Panico, Stella Tomaselli, Katie Grimley, Brooke Delanzo, Kristin Cambell and Mary Libro.
– STORY by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff