Main Line crews make waves at Mid-Atlantic Youth Championships
Several Main Line high school crews made their mark at the USRowing Mid-Atlantic Youth Championships May 8 at Mercer Lake. N.J. Here’s a look at how those teams fared (these results were sent to us by the respective teams):
Radnor
Five Radnor boys boats competed with one advancing to semis and three advancing to finals. Radnor girls sent two boats to Mercer Lake, with one advancing to the finals.
The Women’s Youth Varsity 8+ (Olivia Chase, Olivia Robinson, Anna Duffy, Nicole Vitt, Caroline Ressler, Yunyun Gu, Jillian Hughes, Samantha Talucci and coxswain Cassidy Lorenz), finished third in their heat (7:34.28) to advance to the final, dropping 13 seconds from their heat time to finish fourth overall, with a time of 7:21.31.
The Women’s Youth Varsity 4+ (Katie Dolan, Zoe Landry, Josie Larkin, Hadley Chance and coxswain Julia Lunger) finished fifth in their heat.
The Men’s Youth 2- fielded two boats in prelims with Sam Bupp and Will Vaughn taking fourth and Brett Lyons and Greg McNicholas taking third with a time of 8:53.11 and advancing to finals where they placed sixth.
The Men’s Youth Varsity 4+ (Liam Williams, Matt Palmer, Milo Wilton, Mike Fitzpatrick and coxswain Josh Anderson) placed second in prelims and advanced to semis. They placed fourth in semis with a time of 7:09.78, over 15 seconds ahead of their prelim time.
The Men’s 2V 4+ (JW O’Riordan, Jake Craig, Stefan Neagoe, Chetin Atillasoy and coxswain John Tallucci) finished fourth in prelims with a time of 7:57.93.
The Men’s Lightweight 8+ (Noah Morris, Aidan Donnelly, Stephen Ching, Drew Addis, Bobby Subak, Ryan Borowski, Willem McGee, Pranav Gaddameedi and coxswain Zach Pepper) went straight to finals and earned a gold medal with a time of 6:31.75.
The Men’s Youth Novice 8+ (Andrew Davis, Stuart O’Riordan, Alistair Douglas, Braeden Meandro, Alex DeNolfo, Zach Taylor, Patrick Kaper, Tommy Ciatto, and coxswain Noah Pepper) finished second in prelims with a time of 7:18.74 and advanced to finals where they took sixth place with a time of 7:07.97.
Conestoga
Conestoga qualified all five entries in their qualifying events, and medaling in four junior events.
The finals began with Conestoga novices Kate Concannon (sophomore) and Danica Merrill (freshman) taking second in the women’s youth lightweight double event and therefore qualifying for a trip to US Nationals.
The women’s varsity double crew of seniors Carly Robins and Laura Phelan took bronze in the event, and similarly qualified.
Liam Roth (sophomore) and Julius Neubig (junior) raced their men’s lightweight double to a third place finish and another Nationals bid.
The team’s varsity quads took the team’s last two Nationals spots.
Laura Alcorn (junior), Caroline Gosnear (senior), Kate Hudson (junior) and Emily Hompe finished their women’s quad) race a full six seconds ahead of Resilient and almost 10 seconds ahead of Haddon Township to earn themselves gold.
The Conestoga men’s quad of Max Amsterdam (junior), Jack Corr (senior), Griffin Hamilton (junior) and Jake Novak (senior) finished first.
By far the most exciting race of the day for Conestoga was not a qualifying event but a junior event. Frank Wang (junior) was in fifth place in the men’s U17 single event as he approached the 1,500-meter mark. Frank sprinted as the Conestoga crowd cheered and walked on the ACRA boat. Wang’s third-place finish, at the 2,000 meter mark, was a mere 1/100 second ahead of fourth place Navesink River Rowing shell.
Conestoga sophomores William Zhao and Liam Bobber took bronze in the next race – the men’s U17 double. Conestoga sophomores Amir Zisling and Simon Bodek followed, not too far behind, with a sixth place finish in the same race.
Conestoga freshmen Abigail Lewis, Blair Kennedy, Elena Lindquist and Natalia Bertolotti had a strong finish in the women’s U17 quad event finishing first and a full 14 seconds ahead of South Jersey Rowing.
In the last final race of the day Conestoga freshmen Drew Tada, Cole Fogarty, Kale Wiley, and Conestoga sophomore Michael Medica fought hard for a bronze medal – finishing less then a half a second behind Malvern Prep.
Lower Merion
Lower Merion’s U17 8+ boat won third place out of a tight six boat final race on Sunday earning them a bronze medal at the finish. The team included Isaac Cachon, Justin Wootton, Hunter Segal, Coach, Kirk Beckman, Andrew Gaudio, Hunter McHenry, Aurimas Balciunas, Eli Goldstein and Luke Birch.
The Boys JV4+ made it to the semi-finals in the Men’s Youth 4+ event.
