Sea Isle City second in eight-event format; Margate third, OCBP fourth
WILDWOOD – Sea Isle City’s Danny Rogers and Pat Scannapieco got things started by winning the opening doubles row at the 52nd annual Dutch Hoffman Memorial Lifeguard Championships Monday evening. Cape May’s Kennedy Campbell followed that with a win in the women’s rescue board race, but the night would belong to the Avalon Beach Patrol.
Avalon won three of the remaining six races and placed in two others to take the crown and dethrone the Longport Beach Patrol, the defending champions.
It was a beautiful night at the Lincoln Avenue beach in Wildwood for a revamped Dutch Hoffman championship, delayed from Friday night because of expected inclement weather. The host Wildwood Beach Patrol decided to change up the format by including three women’s events to go with three men’s events and the open doubles and singles rows.
That offered the opportunity for the 15 patrols in the South Jersey Lifeguard Chiefs Association to showcase a wider range of athletes compared to the upcoming final two big lifeguard races – Friday evening’s Margate WWII Memorials and the South Jersey Championships, both which feature only doubles and singles rows and a swim.
Despite having eight events, the host patrol ran things extremely fast with multiple events overlapping – the men’s swim started after the women’s rescue board athletes finished the first leg and it was the same way for the women’s swim following the men’s rescue board race. In the two runs, the men started only about 10 seconds ahead of the women.
The Avalon Beach Patrol started dominating in the third event of the evening, the 600-yard men’s swim. Ocean City High School graduate Dolan Grisbaum won the race and then teammate Brandon Hontz took the one-mile run. Grace Wiley placed third in the women’s run, which kicked off 10 seconds after the men. Her points added to a fifth-place finish by Alyssa Sittineri in the women’s 600-yard paddle.
Becca Cubbler earned the team’s third first-place finish, keeping Avalon ahead of the other teams, and then Erich Wolf cinched the victory with his second-place finish in the singles row.
Avalon finished with 23 points for the team title and the Sea Isle City Beach Patrol was second with 15 points. The Margate City Beach Patrol was third with 14 points, the Ocean City Beach Patrol fourth with 13 and the Wildwood Beach Patrol and Cape May Beach Patrol each had 11 points, but Wildwood finished in fifth with a tiebreaker. The other teams with points included the Longport Beach Patrol, 9; Ventnor City Beach Patrol and Brigantine City Beach Patrol with 7 each; Wildwood Crest Beach Patrol with 6 and the Atlantic City Beach Patrol with 4.
The other beach patrols competing included Upper Township, Stone Harbor, North Wildwood and Cape May Point.
Open Doubles Row
Longport’s Sean Duffey and Michael McGrath were second in the doubles row, followed by Margate City’s Hayden Smallwood and Bob Bechtel, third; Wildwood Crest’s Terry McGovern and Jake Klecko, fourth; and Cape May’s Andrew Treffeisen and Mike Fitzpatrick, fifth.
Women’s Rescue Board
After Cape May’s Campbell, Wildwood’s Bella Taylor was second in the women’s 600-yard rescue board race, Ocean City’s Mia Gallagher was third; Brigantine’s Grace Emig was fourth and Avalon’s Sittineri fifth.
Men’s 600-yard swim
Following Grisbaum in the men’s swim, Ocean City’s Dylan DeWitt was second; Margate City’s Zach Vasser third; Wildwood’s Brendan Lewis fourth; and Brigantine’s James Haney fifth.
Men’s one-mile run
Coming in after Avalon’s Hontz in the one-mile run were Wildwood Crest’s Colin Hess in second; Ventnor City’s Michael Keough in third; Margate City’s Linden Wineland, a standout runner and recent graduate from Mainland Regional High School, in fourth; and Atlantic City’s Kevin Wallace in fifth.
Women’s one-mile run
Wildwood’s Tess McVan, who less than a week earlier won the title at the Cape May Point Women’s Lifeguard Challenge, easily outdistanced the other lifeguards to win the women’s one-mile run. Sea Isle City’s Bridget Kennedy was second; Wiley from Avalon third; Ocean City’s Claudia Booth, another Mainland graduate, was fourth; and Brigantine’s Megan Winterbottom fifth.
Men’s Rescue Board
Cape May Beach Patrol guard Clay Stephens won the men’s 600-yard rescue board race, leading the pack on the way in after the final turn, and then outracing a pair of competitors in a mad dash to the finish on the Lincoln Avenue beach. Stephens was able to outsprint Ventnor City’s Ben Iannelli, who came in second; and Brigantine’s Sean O’Neill, who was third. Ocean City’s Andrew Shaw was fourth and Sea Isle’s Corbin King was fifth.
Women’s 600-yard swim
Cubbler was well ahead of the pack to win the women’s 600-yard swim. Atlantic City’s Megan Fox, a recent graduate of Atlantic City High School, was second; Sea Isle City’s Mary Kate Leonard was third; Ocean City’s Ava Berzanski was fourth; and Margate City’s Olivia Scherbin, a former standout swimmer for Ocean City High School, was fifth.
Open Singles Row
Margate City’s Bob Bechtel won the open singles row, with Avalon’s Wolf in second; Atlantic City’s David Kenny in third; Sea Isle City’s Danny Rogers in fourth and Longport’s Michael McGrath in fifth.
(Both the singles and doubles rows were open, meaning female lifeguards were eligible to enter, but all of the entries in both events were male lifeguards.)
Coming up
The Margate WWII Memorial Lifeguard Races are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 5. The following Friday, Aug. 12, is the South Jersey Lifeguard Championships in Longport. The final women’s race of the summer, the Bill Howarth Women’s Lifeguard Championships, is set for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 10.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
