OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Beach Patrol moved its Women’s Lifeguard Invitational races to the 12th Street beach Wednesday, July 20, and it paid off for fans who came out to watch as 14 teams competed in exciting competitions on the beach and close to shore.
The host patrol took home first place in the surf dash and paddle board relay, but the Avalon Beach Patrol won the other two races — the swim relay and run-swim — and picked up enough extra points in the other events to edge the OCBP for the team title.
Avalon finished with 13 points and Ocean City came in with 12. Sea Girt was third with 10 points, Longport fourth with 7 and Cape May fifth with 5.
The Ocean City races had been held at the 34th Street beach in prior years, but always featured fan-friendly action that keep the South Jersey lifeguards close to spectators. This year rowing was eliminated from the events but the action was just as fast-paced.
Box Swim Relay
Avalon’s Becca Cubbler and Maggie Mikalic won the swim relay, which featured short runs on the beach as part of the box course. Mikalic took the first leg and put Cubbler in a good position when she tagged her for the second part of the relay.
“I was sprinting and holding on for dear life,” Mikalic said.
“I’m a distance swimmer in college at Lehigh University so this was a fun little quick race, a sprint,” she added. “I got into the water close to two swimmers and I pushed past them around the buoy. I saw a Sea Girt swimmer when I was going parallel to the shore and then I was racing her on the way in and then I tapped out with Becca.”
“I like leading. It makes me feel good helping out my teammates,” she added.
“They came in pretty much neck and neck,” Cubbler said of watching Mikalic and the Sea Girt swimmer race to where the second-leg swimmers were waiting. “I was actually second into the water because of the run. I tried to work my dolphin dives going in so that usually gets me ahead. I knew I was ahead around the second buoy … and I was looking back and I could see Longport’s red cap, so I just tried to sprint in and keep my head down.”
Cubbler said they won a pair of races a week earlier at the 53rd Beschen-Callahan Memorial Lifeguard Races in North Wildwood. “To continue the trend for Avalon feels awesome,” she said.
Longport’s Megan Fox and Jordan Ricciotti were second in the swim relay; Sea Girt’s Sara Barrett and Megan Lovacz were third; Ocean City’s Ava Berzanski and Isabella Rossi were fourth; and Cape May’s Kate Luft and Sara Jackson were fifth.
Box Paddle Relay
Before the race, Ocean City’s Erin Murphy told race partner Mia Gallagher they had a really good chance of winning — and then they made it come true.
Murphy went into the surf first in the box paddle relay, an event in which they had to race to their boards, paddle and then carry the board to the hand-off point. Their teammates then carried the boards to the water, paddled and then finished the course in a sprint.
“I’ve done the paddle and surf dash a few times before so I use that technique when I grab the board, surf-dashing with it,” Murphy said. “When you get waist-high you start galloping with it and as soon as you hit that first wave hop on and immediately fast paddle strokes to get out there. And then a continuous hard stroke to keep the momentum going.”
“It was so much fun. Mia (Gallagher) is such an amazing paddler,” she said. “We were super excited to be able to do a relay, just knowing that we are both good paddlers and there were chances that we could win and pump each other up.
“And then it was so much fun watching her come in in the lead. I was screaming my lungs out. I think I lost my voice,” she said, laughing. “I was so happy we could come out with a win on our home course. I’m glad we could come out with a win the first time racing together.”
“It was awesome,” Gallagher said about being put in such a good position for the second leg of the race. “Erin is such a good teammate. I just met her this year but we’ve definitely become good friends through it. It’s just super fun.”
Gallagher’s strategy was simple: “Go all out and just get the win for Ocean City. It’s so cool to win on your own beach.”
She noted it also was fun doing the race with a teammate. Most lifeguard competitions feature individuals competing in paddling and swimming rather than teams.
Wildwood’s Bella Taylor and Caitie Collins were second in the box paddle relay; Sea Girt’s McLane Gmelich and Skylar O’Keefe were third; Avalon’s Alyssa Sittineri and Molly McDonnell were fourth; and Cape May’s Kennedy Campbell and Emma DeMario were fifth.
Run-Swim Relay
The run-swim relay featured guards running about a half-mile — north up the beach and then back south — and then tagging their partners, who would dash into the surf for a swim.
Cubbler earned her second victory of the evening teaming with runner Jill McEntee.
“This feels great. I love competing for Avalon, so it’s awesome to keep it going,” she said, adding the tag-team events “are really fun. I haven’t had a race like this since I’ve been here.”
She was put in a “decent” position for the swim courtesy of McEntee.
“We had some blockers in the way but we made it through and it was a really short swim, so I guess that helped having minimal rest between events,” Cubbler said.
“I like to trail behind and then in the second half kind of push,” McEntee said of her strategy, “but that (race) felt a little shorter than half a mile so I should have pushed a little more at the beginning.
“I couldn’t have done it without this amazing star over here,” McEntee said, gesturing to Cubbler. “This feels amazing. I’m so glad I got to do it with her.”
“I ran in high school and I miss that … so it was awesome. I love running on the beach and this is one of the events where you can do a longer run other than the surf dash, but that’s up next. I’m excited for these Avalon girls to crush it,” she said.
Sea Girt’s Betsy Keenan and Barrett finished second in the run-swim; Longport’s Ricciotti and Casey Murray were third; Sea Isle’s Emily Kulak and Mary Kate Leonard were fourth; and Brigantine’s Megan Winterbottom and Laney Harris were fifth.
Surf Dash
Things didn’t go exactly as planned for the OCBP’s surf dash team, but their grit powered the women to their second consecutive victory in the event this season. The foursome of Morgan Decosta, Haley Clayton, Annie Dollarton and Kat Soanes won the event in a sprint to the finish with Ventnor, a week after winning at the Longport Women’s Lifeguard Invitational.
Soanes, as the anchor leg, went down as she emerged from the surf, skinning both of her knees, but she jumped right back up to outrace Ventnor anchor Stacey Price.
The race started off a little differently than the week before when Decosta wasn’t able to give her team the lead on the first leg, but she credited her teammates with balancing it out.
“I was going to follow the same plan that I had last time,” Decosta said, “but I started out pretty slow and didn’t come out first from this one, but then my team pulled through. My team still came together at the end. It really takes all four of us. It’s a big team effort.”
She was happy her team won on their home course. “Last year we got second by like a millisecond so coming out here and winning first was absolutely awesome.”
“It’s really great. It’s so fun. Beach patrol is so great and our team is so fun and all our girls are so supportive,” Clayton said. She was the second leg of the race. “You’re so focused. You’re not really looking at anyone around you. It goes by really quick and you’re going as fast as you can.”
Dollarton said it was “the luck of the Irish” that helped her in the third leg. “I was actually lucky like last week. I got to catch a wave, which is really cool.” As the runners dash into the surf, they also have to get past the waves and then back through the waves again to the beach. Body-surfing a wave can propel a dasher past competitors who are fighting through it.
“We went into (the race) with a really good mindset,” Dollarton said. “We were all nervous at first. We turned those nerves into motivation and we killed it.”
“I knew coming in that being on 12th Street there’s always ups and downs to hit or miss and I knew there was at least going to be something today. I felt it in my gut,” Soanes said of the hazards not visible in the sand under the surf. “I tried moving my body as far as I could forward trying to get to the finish line even though I stumbled a few times.”
“It absolutely feels amazing just to be on the home field and having the best teammates in the entire world,” said Soanes, who is going into her senior year at Stockton University. “It means more than anything to win it in Ocean City especially in the zone that I grew up in for six years.”
Ventnor’s surf dash team of Price, Madison Litsitsin, Olivia Kulakowski and Sam Keough were second; Cape May’s Luft, Maddie Bickford, Jenny Rafter and AP Grey were third; Brigantine’s Grace Emig, Megan Winterbottom, Abbey Gragg and Kayla Pititucci were fourth; and Avalon’s Cackie Martin, Mackenna Finnegan, Mentee and Molly McDonnell were fifth.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff