Red Raider varsity A boys and girls boats win their divisions
OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City Chase Race brought crews from different schools, plus a few master’s boats, to the intracoastal waterway behind Ocean City Saturday morning, Oct. 8.
The Ocean City High School boys and girls varsity 8 A boats won their divisions in the races that featured 4K and 2K races that finished beneath the Roosevelt Boulevard bridge separating Ocean City from Upper Township.
In addition to Ocean City, the high school races also featured crews from Mainland Regional, Egg Harbor Township, Haddonfield and St. Augustine Prep.
Proceeds from the entrance fees went to support the Ocean City crew program. Colin Stewart, an OCHS alum who rowed for the Red Raiders and went on to row at Drexel University, organized the event.
Although the morning started out chilly and cloudy, by the time the rowers started racing close to 9 a.m., the sun was shining and warming things up. The waters were fairly smooth in the waterway, unlike the chop on the bay stirred up by a steady breeze.
Although high school races usually are 1,500 meters, the Chase Race winding through the waterway was 4,000 meters.
Rather than having multiple boats lined up side by side like crew races on Lake Lenape, the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and Cooper River in Camden, the chase race featured boats going off in 30-second intervals, one following the other – the chase.
In the varsity 8 boys race, however, as the boats came around the final bend to head toward the finish, it started looking like a regular race as three boats ended up nearly side by side as the Ocean City varsity A boat caught up to two others contention.
In the end, the Ocean City A boat finished with a time of 16:35.58, EHT was second in 17:01.34 and St. Augustine Prep A third in 17:41.19. The other finishers were Haddonfield, fourth, 18:20.66; Mainland fifth, 18:23; St. Augustine C, sixth, 18:33.7; St. Augustine B, seventh, 19:04.58; and Ocean City B, eighth, 20:03.13
In the Red Raider varsity 8 A boat were stroke Jake Tracy, Jimmy Nilsen, Drew Young, Ben Wilson, Wesley Dice, Thorne Swift, Joey Pepe, bow Jake Meli and coxswain Jake Thurlow.
In the girls varsity 8 race, Ocean City’s A boat finished first in 19:13.68 with Haddonfield A second in 19:23.7, Ocean City B third in 21:13.19 and Haddonfield B fourth in 30:15.81.
In the Red Raider girls varsity 8 were stroke Casey Coffey, Adison Conti, Cas Parsons, Kira Morjakovs, Lily Beard, Rainey Puerta, Molly Hoffman, bow Leah Japzon and coxswain Ava Ruh.
One girls boat with young rowers unfamiliar with the coarse ended up stuck in the marsh and had to be pulled out, but they finished the race.
STORY AND PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel
