Sea Isle City second, Upper Township third in final women’s race
VENTNOR – The Bill Howarth Women’s Lifeguard Invitational took place on Ventnor beach on a beautiful breezy and sunny evening Aug. 9 for the finale of the women’s racing season. All season long the guards had been gearing up for this night and it proved competitive, but the Longport Beach Patrol took an early lead and built on it on their way to the title.
The LBP finished with 18 points, Sea Isle City Beach Patrol was second with 10 points, Upper Township Beach Patrol third with 9 points, Atlantic City Beach Patrol fourth with 7 points and the home team fifth with 6 points.
For 28 years now this race has been the season finale. The event was renamed in honor of Bill Howarth, a former 29-year captain for the Ventnor City Beach Patrol. Howarth passed away from cancer in 2016 but was a mentor to female lifeguards.
As a symbol for what these beach patrols mean to each other, all volunteer lane judges this year were females and old competitors from the various town’s beach patrols. There was a great camaraderie among all the former guards and the current competitors.
For this last race of the season, it was do or die time for all beach patrols taking part. There were four events on the night starting with the doubles row.
Ten beach patrols entered doubles teams and it was touch and go for who would finish first as teams battled for the lead.
The Longport Beach Patrol snagged a wave to ride in ahead of the others, but almost capsized when that wave rocked them and turned the boat sideways near the finish. The rowers were able to turn the boat around and keep their small lead for the win.
Madelyn Fox and Emma Barnhart earned the victory with the Upper Township Beach Patrol’s Lorna Connell and Kailey Grimley right behind in second. Ventnor’s Stacey Price and Meghan Holland, who had been in the top five for doubles all season, finished third with Sea Isle City Beach Patrol’s Maura Quinn and Molly Quinn in fourth. Margate City’s Claudia Scherbin and Alexis Smallwood took fifth, the last scoring spot.
While Fox and Barnhart shared they were excited to get out there, their race didn’t start or end on a particularly high note.
“Honestly we were off our flag at the start and Upper Township saved our lives,” Fox said. “They really saved us and told us we were going the wrong way, so all of this race is thanks to them.”
After Upper graciously sent the Longport duo in the right direction and the pair battled it out to before their ending was a little disrupted as well.
“I kind of messed that up at the end there,” Fox said, jumped in ahead of her partner to take the blame. “Once we remembered from the rules that you have to stay in the boat, we just started yelling to each other to lean in and just to keep our bodies in the boat.”
Barnhart touched on their pride at getting first ahead of other doubles teams they haven’t beaten in the past.
“Our last race we went against these other doubles and got second so we were excited to come back and see what we could do,” Barnhart said. “But we also really do want to say congrats to them because they’ve been beasts all season long.”
Barnhart and Fox were able to come out ahead of the older and more seasoned pair of rowers from Ventnor, Price and Holland. The duo shared the experience racing with them has provided.
“Our plan was to follow them throughout the race. We didn’t expect to be right with them, especially since we were way behind at the start, so we had to just fight our way back,” Fox said. “The Ventnor crew has been so helpful to us and they’re so thoughtful. Stacey coached me at Temple (University) and Meghan Holland is just a legend in lifeguard community so having them as examples just helps us so much.”
The second event of the night was the half-mile swim where once again a familiar name took the win. Longport’s Megan Fox secured her third first place this season, putting Longport further ahead with 10 points for the two first place finishes.
Fox has had great success in each swim event this season, but her humbleness continued to shine through as she shared she didn’t expect to win.
“I honestly was not really expecting to win the swim tonight,” Fox said. “I felt like the water was just so cold that it was going to cause a lot of us to fall apart or have a hard time, but it ended up going so much better than I thought.”
Fox said she felt a lot of pressure to continue and win to finish the season off strong but explained what led to her large swimming success.
“I swim every day. We get morning workout hours and I usually just go for a swim,” Fox said. “I think that experience was just a big deal.”
Fox said it was great she and her sister won back-to-back events.
Sea Isle’s Mary Kate Leonard came in behind Fox with Sea Girt’s Mclane Gmelich third. Ocean City’s Summer Dewitt claimed fourth place as Avalon’s Katie Scanlon finished swam fifth.
The singles row was the third event of the night and a new name won. Julianna Granese put the Atlantic City Beach Patrol on the scoreboard for the night.
Prior to this season, Granese hadn’t competed in singles for a few years. The joy emanating for the large smile on her face and her fellow guards lifting her up while in the boat showed everyone how great this win felt.
“This win feels amazing,” Granese said. “I kind of doubted myself, but I pulled it out when it mattered and I’m just really proud of myself and happy for Atlantic City.”
Granese came in second in the singles row at the first race of the season in Longport. After competing in the doubles row earlier, Granese was motivated to do better in the singles.
“I rowed doubles and we had a little bit of an unfortunate end to the race so that kind of put me in that mindset of like I need this win.” Granese said. “So, I think that just gave me fire and helped win the singles.”
Longport’s Madelyn Fox snagged second inches behind Granese with Ventnor’s Price close behind in third. Avalon’s Sarah Powell was fourth with Sea Isle’s Maura Quinn sneaking into fifth.
The fourth and final event of the night was the surf dash. As always, the event proves to be the most anticipated race of the night as the crowd rushed to get close to the competitors and chant for their favorite beach patrols.
Upper Township’s foursome – Grace Steele, Grace Malcarney, Emily Culmone and Eve Chiarello – which placed but didn’t win the surf dash in the other races this season, finally took put it together to take first.
“I think we were so focused today,” Steele said. “We had a goal. We’ve been placing top three this season and I think we just wanted it. We went out there and we knew what we needed to do to get it done.”
“I think it definitely was our best race of the season,” Culmone added. “We had the right mindset and we’ve been talking about it for weeks. We had a couple extra weeks to prepare and we just went our there and gave it our all.”
“It was pretty awesome,” Chiarello said. “This is possibly my last surf dash race ever so I really wanted to leave it all out there.” This is her sixth year on the UTBP, “but I want to go to med school so I have to move on, but I hope to come back for one more.”
“It feels amazing,” Malcarney said. “I’m actually a rookie so this is my first summer with everyone. This has been an awesome experience getting to meet people. We came out today knowing it was the last race of the season and we wanted to give it our all.”
Longport’s Alivia Wainwright, Megan Fox, Emma Barnhart and Morgan Lancaster hot on their heels for second. Sea Isle’s Anna Scoblich, Kylie Fry, Hailey Mills and Kaylee Dougherty grabbed third place, Atlantic City was fourth with Lilly Malone, Chloe Malone, Christina Cohen and Gazaz. Stone Harbor’s Shannon Risco, Sydney Witwer, Sophia Hey and Vittoria Corvella were fifth.
Staff writer David Nahan contributed to this story.
– Story by DELANEY CRAWFORD, Photos by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
