ATLANTIC CITY — The Atlantic City Beach Patrol won two events and placed in the other four to amass 23 points and win the Atlantic City Lifeguard Classic on July 29 on home surf.
The Longport Beach Patrol was second with 16 points and Brigantine City Beach Patrol third with 12. The Margate City Beach Patrol was a close fourth with 11 and Diamond Beach Patrol fifth with 7. Ocean City was seventh out of the 10 patrols with 5 points.
The ACBP’s Will Bradley, Emma Crozier-Carole, Johnny Hughes and Luke Kerrigan quickly took the lead in the opening surf dash under clear blue skies with a strong southern breeze.
“The event was fun. We were nervous going into it, but we’ve got a great team and we knew what we could do,” Kerrigan said.
The Northfield resident said because of the tide, the race was more of a run than a swim, but noted there were a lot of holes that “created a little bit of an obstacle.”
Crozier-Carole, another Northfield resident, said being the only woman on the team was no big deal.
“It feels like a lot of pressure, but when you’re surrounded by the environment of hype-up, and ‘We got this, we can do this, we can win, we know we can win,’ it makes it all better,” she said.
The Sea Girt Beach Patrol was second, Longport third, Diamond Beach fourth and Harvey Cedars Beach Patrol fifth.
The ACBP’s Kyle Deroo and Taylor Dirkes followed the surf dash with a win in the doubles rescue race to increase the team score to 10 points.
The LPBP was second and the OCBP’s Frank Christy and Brian Pasternak were third. The event requires the doubles crew to row out to a flag, detach a bag as they turn, row back to shore then jump out with the 25- to 30-pound bag and run across the finish line.
“We got caught by a wave on the side, but we were able to pick up, get back to the flag, clean transition to the bag, get back in, and the biggest thing was finishing over the line with the bag,” Christy said. “So we were able to do everything pretty smoothly. Pasternak has been doing this a couple years, so I was able to just listen to him.”
It was his first time competing in the rescue race.
“It’s pretty heavy; I was surprised. I thought it was just foam,”Christy said of the bag.
Pasternak said they did not get off to a great start and had to make up time.
“It wasn’t the cleanest of starts, but going out, once we got past the breakers, my partner got the bag off quick. I was able to kind of turn the boat to kind of get back in, and then we were able to make up ground,” he said.
Maintaining position is rarely a sure thing in ocean racing.
“I think we got lucky with one of the other boats kind of broaching a little bit, and then we were able to sneak past them and get that third position,” Pasternak added.
Harvey Cedars was fourth and Margate fifth.
The MCBP’s Bob Bechtel and Hayden Smallwood won the one-mile doubles race.
“We were out from the beginning, we held it, the boat was moving good. Came in and we hopped on a couple of nice little swells. It was a short race, so when we were up, we sort of just held the lead,” Bechtel said.
Longport was second, Atlantic City third, Brigantine fourth and Ocean City’s Matt Oves and Jay Stokes were fifth.
Diamond Beach Patrol from Lower Township easily won the swim/paddle relay. Swimmers Angus Blair and Frank Brady, a former OCBP guard, got things started and paddlers Will Auty and Gavin Loughlin wrapped it up. Brady just won the OCBP’s T. John Carey Masters Swim.
Loughlin, the anchor, attributed the success to “two really strong swimmers with Frank and Angus going out. Will did a great job getting out to me on the board and I got a little wave on the way in. They did an awesome job going out to get us started.”
Loughlin caught a wave and put some distance between himself and his competitors, but he nearly missed it.
“I was on the brink for a second. I thought I slowed down and slid back too early — on these longer boards it’s a little easier to nose dive — but luckily was able to get back into it,” he said.
Brigantine was second, the Lavalette Beach Patrol was third, Atlantic City fourth and Ocean City fifth.
Swimmer Dylan DeWitt got things started for the OCBP.
“I ran out there and fell in a hole, so I kind of fell and felt it. But otherwise, it was a good race,” he said. “We scored points, so we’re having a good night.”
Brigantine’s Matt Dolan, Fauve Haney, Joe Savell and Molly Hoffman won the doubles relay, but multiple boats were getting turned parallel to shore just at the breakers.
Hoffman and Savell rowed the second leg, when some crews were just getting to shore as others were heading out.
“It was very chaotic with, like, getting it back out but we have a really awesome push crew who’s dialed in and like knows how to handle this situation, so the transition, it was chaotic with all the other boats,” Hoffman said. “Once we got out to the flag, Joe and I just like cranked it back in and caught a good wave and shot it in straight.”
Atlantic City was second, Harvey Cedars third, Margate fourth and the Ventnor City Beach Patrol was fifth.
Despite all of the young athletes competing, veteran experience won the final event, the singles sprint row, when Longport’s Mike McGrath topped the other nine competitors.
He said he got off to a poor start.
“I’ve been having some knee problems lately,” he said, adding that he stepped in a hole on the way out.
“I was just trying to keep it easy on the way out, and then there was a bomb off the flag that I just kept rolling. I finally dropped in and then somehow, some way, kept it straight,” he said.
“People say we’re old,” doubles partner Duffy added.
Atlantic City was second, Margate third, Ventnor fourth and Brigantine fifth.
– STORY by CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
– PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
