Ventnor tops OCBP by one point to win lifeguard races
LONGPORT — The real star of the event wasn’t the Ventnor City Beach Patrol nipping the Ocean City Beach Patrol by one point for the team title at the 24th annual Longport Women’s Lifeguard Invitational on July 13.
It wasn’t the Ventnor rowers who captured the doubles and singles titles. It wasn’t the Longport swimmers who finished first and second or the Brigantine paddleboarder who outraced Ocean City’s entrant to the finish. And it wasn’t the OCBP surf dash relay who were fastest through the waves.
No, it was TJ Kresz, the 3-year-old handing out the trophies on a beautiful summer night at the Longport Beach Patrol headquarters. The little guy who stole the show — at least the awards ceremony — has lifeguard DNA. He is the son of LBP Chief Thomas Kresz and his wife, Katie (Adams) Kresz, grandson of former LBP chief Dan Adams, and great-grandson of William A. Adams, the longtime Longport Fire Department chief for whom the 2022 meet was dedicated.
Dan Adams, who announced the winners at the end of the night, said members of the Adams family were there to present the trophies in honor of his late father. TJ happily handed them to all the lifeguards who placed in the top three.
The first trophies TJ handed out went to Ventnor City’s Meghan Holland and Stacey Price, who opened the meet by winning the doubles in a time of 11 minutes, 10 seconds.
“I have a motorboat in my stern,” Holland said. “Her name is Stacey Price. She’s so tough. This is the earliest we started training. We’ve been rowing since May.
“Stacey and I have never rowed out of town together. She’s done doubles with Katie Fisher the last few years. We were sad to lose Katie but I was really excited to have an opportunity to row with Stacey because she’s such a tremendous athlete and such a phenomenal rower,” Holland said.
“We started in the mud. That was not so much fun,” she added.
When the start of the race was signaled, a number of boats, including Ventnor’s, were still stuck on the sand, rather than floating in the water, and required an extra push. Holland said they were able to stay calm.
The lieutenant, who has been on the Ventnor City Beach Patrol for 26 years, said the “caliber of the female athletes has skyrocketed so It’s an honor to row with a lot of these girls and compete against them. I was excited to see as many female crews as there were. Kudos to all the ladies who came out to row.
“And I’m just excited that I’ve still got it a little bit,” she added, laughing.
Atlantic City’s Morgan Simpson and Julianna Granese were second (11:23), Margate twins Amanda and Kristine Auble third (11:24), Sea Isle City’s Callie Reed and Abigail Ryan fourth (11:39), Upper Township’s Lorna Connell and Kailey Grimley fifth (12:15) and Ocean City’s Charlotte Giacobetti and Hailey Strickland sixth (13:08). Points were awarded for the top six places.
Swim
New Atlantic City High School graduate Megan Fox and rising Mainland Regional High School junior Jordan Ricciotti went 1-2 in the swim for the Longport Beach Patrol. Fox, carrying on her winning ways in the swim from last lifeguard racing season, finished in 12:31. Ricciotti’s time was 13:09.
“It feels really good,” Fox said about the race. “We finished 1-2 last year with a different swimmer (Katie McClintock), so I was really happy to repeat it.”
She said the current was strong so she had to swim left then cut back in.
Ricciotti said her strategy was the same as her teammate’s.
“I did end up farther (south) and coming in I realized it, so I figured I might as well swim straight and then run for it,” she said.
Fox finished the course right at the finish but Ricciotti had to sprint up the beach.
“It’s great,” Ricciotti added about the win. “I wanted (Longport) to repeat and honor Katie and make sure we kept our streak alive.”
Avalon lifeguard Becca Cubbler was third (13:30), teammate Maggie Mikalic was fourth (13:48), Sea Isle City’s Mary Kate Leonard was fifth (14:32) and Wildwood’s Bella Taylor was sixth (14:33).
Paddleboard
It was a tight race to the finish in the paddleboard race for the top three guards, who were close throughout much of the box course.
Brigantine’s Grace Emig won in 3:42 with Ocean City’s Mia Gallagher 2 seconds behind for second and Wildwood’s Taylor, going back-to-back in events, third in 3:46.
“I think I did all right,” Emig said in a bit of an understatement. “I’m very happy with myself. It was very close. Ocean City was next to me. She’s very good.” Noting her strategy, she said, “When you get to the buoys, you hug the inside so you can turn first.”
With breakers closer to shore, she said navigating them on a paddleboard is not easy.
“It’s hard on those boards. They’re really wobbly if you’re not used to racing on them, but I’ve been practicing for a long time so that’s helpful,” she said.
Emig was able to catch a wave and ride it closer to the finish, get around the marker on the beach and outrace Gallagher to the line.
Upper Township’s Lindsay Robbins was fourth (4:00), North Wildwood’s Emily Nelson fifth (4:05) and Wildwood Crest’s Maddie Priest sixth (4:16).
Singles
Winning the doubles race with Holland didn’t dilute Price’s energy for the singles row. The Ventnor guard finished first in 5:25, 6 seconds ahead Atlantic City’s Morgan Simpson (5:31).
Price was exuberant after the race, raising her arms in triumph as her teammates held her boat aloft.
Her strategy was to “just go as hard as possible, take a good course and listen to all the awesome things all my coaches have to say and just have fun. That’s what ocean racing is all about; you never know what you’re going to get and it’s about doing the best you can with the given conditions and enjoying the ride.
“And maybe take a little spill on the way out or on the way in,” Price added, laughing.
After crossing the finish, the waves slammed her boat into the beach, tossing her about a bit, but she came up smiling.
“I have faith in all the guards around me so I always feel safe,” she said.
“It’s amazing,” Price said about winning both the doubles and singles. “You hope for the best every night and Meghan and I have been putting the work in, so it just goes to show the training reflects the performance.”
Upper Township’s Lorna Connell was third (5:37), Ocean City’s Laura Mastrangelo fourth (5:46), Sea Isle’s Maura Quinn fifth (5:53) and Avalon’s Olivia Coffey sixth (6:05).
Surf Dash
Ocean City’s surf dash team wrapped up the evening with a pair of veterans teaming with two newcomers to win the relay event in 1:56.
Veterans Kat Soanes and Morgan Decosta and new surf dashers Annie Dollarton and Haley Clayton got into and out of the surf the fastest on a relatively short course that had the guards getting past some big breakers.
“Besides running, pretty much it was to dive as far as I could under the big break and ultimately try to get as fast as I could in,” Soanes said of her strategy as the anchor leg in the relay. “I’m so proud of my team. It’s a new team this year. I’m so proud of everybody and so happy to be here.”
“It’s a great start,” she said about winning the first surf dash race of the lifeguard competition season. “I hope that we can win for the rest of the season.”
“I was holding my breath and I was like, I have to come out first,” Decosta said of taking the opening leg of the relay. “I wanted to hold my breath as long as I can and when I came up first that’s all I wanted to do, so I accomplished my goal.”
Decosta said winning the first race “sets the tone for the rest of the season.”
“This is my first time racing,” Dollarton said, “so it was interesting at first because it was so shallow here, but that wave got everyone. Trying to catch that wave was my strategy. It was so much fun. I loved it.”
Clayton, a rookie and a rising senior at Poly Prep Country Day School in New York City, is on the beach patrol because her dad was a guard and she really wanted to try out.
“It was super fun,” she said of the race. “I was nervous but everyone on the patrol is so nice and high-fiving you and saying ‘you can do it.’ It was the best thing ever.”
The Margate Beach Patrol finished second (2:04) in the surf dash with Aliana Menendez, Julianna Duff, Grace Gaskell and Gracie Pierce. Brigantine’s Emig, Kayla Pattitucci, Abbey Gragg and Megan Winterbottom were third (2:07); Ventnor was fourth (2:08), Atlantic City fifth (2:10) and Wildwood sixth (2:13).
Team Title
Ventnor won the team title with 17 points, just ahead of Ocean City, which finished with 16. Atlantic City and Longport tied with 12 points each, but Atlantic City was awarded third via a tie-breaker.
“We have such a good group of girls on Ventnor,” Holland said. “They’ve all been working really hard.”
She said outside of herself and fellow veteran guard Price, the team has a lot of young girls — the surf dash team, the paddleboarder and swimmers are all rookies or second-year guards.
“I’m really proud of them to get a lot of experience and they did amazing. Our surf dash team got fourth, so that was all Stacey and the young girls,” she said. The other surf dash members are Sam Keough, Madison Litsitsin and Olivia Kulakowski.
OCBP women’s race July 20
The Ocean City Women’s Lifeguard Invitation race is at 6:30 p.m. today (Wednesday) at the 12th Street beach in Ocean City.
– Story and photos by DAVID NAHAN/Ocean City Sentinel