Six medals for Mount crew at City Championships

by TOM UTESCHER

Last Sunday, the Mount St. Joseph Academy crew made a strong showing across the board at the Philadelphia City Championships, qualifying all nine of its entries for the final round of racing, and earning two gold, two silver, and two bronze medals.

The results were not surprising considering the way the Magic has performed on the Schuylkill this spring. In the Girls Sweep category, the Mount won the Manny Flick Point Trophy by amassing a total of 563 points, while Holy Spirit was a distinctly distant second with 201.

At Cities, the lightweight and freshman eights maintained their status as the stars of the program, each capturing gold medals while silver medallions went to the JV Eight and the Novice Eight “A” boat.

In their head race to qualify for the finals, the MSJ ninth-graders sent a message to the other freshman crews: “Give up!” Their time was 18 seconds better than the second-place eight, and although their margin of victory was not as great in the finals, there was still a 12-second gap separating the Magic (5:06.54) from silver medalist Mainland High School. Devon Stewart directed from the coxbox and Lawren Kiefer (stroke), Meredith Weber, Meg Kehan, Hilary O’Shea, Meg Farris, Megan Schluckebier, Lizzy Kiernan, and Jenna O’Neill did the pulling for this talented young crew.

Taking top spot by seven-and-a-half seconds in the light eight head racing was the MSJ crew composed of Jane Mieczkowski (cox), Jenn Young (stroke), Saibh Madden, Christine Laskowski, Mollie Flynn, Steph Farris, Kelly O’Neill, Marykate Kelly, and Liz Stanowski. In the finals, they took the gold medal in 5:12.61 over Ocean City High School (5:15.70) and bronze medalist Shipley (5:20.74).

In the Novice Eight class, Merion Mercy bested the field by about ten seconds in both the head race and the final, and the next two places belonged to Mount St. Joe’s in each instance. The “A” boat containing Nicole Cimbak (cox), Genevieve O’Mara (stroke), Claire Kohler, Kerry Roman, Natalie McWilliams, Katie Leonard, Colleen Beichert, Colleen McNamara, and Athena Diaconis secured the silver medal at 5:22.48, while the bronze went to MSJ “B,” which Merry McCarron (cox), Christina Bernall (stroke), Molly Thompson, Meg Furey, Pam Danielle, Liz Limberakis, Jen Havard, Rose Mazurek, and Christine Bono brought to the wire in 5:23.98.

The other silver medal won by the Mount belonged to the JV eight (Kaitlin McDonald [cox], Cara Crumlish [stroke], Ali Bono, Kara Lederer, Katie Bolger, Erin McGann, Katie Klein, Liz Keenan, and Kristin O’Neill), which was also second in the head race, too, just one second off the lead. Ocean City had apparently saved a kick for the final, though; they won in 5:06.38, Mount St. Joe was second in 5:13.00, and Camden Catholic was third in 5:17.14.

The Novice Four for the Magic secured the last qualifying spot for the finals, then moved up in the championship race to snag the bronze medal. Coming in behind Haddonfield and Upper Merion were MSJ’s Alicia Elliott (cox), Jackie Hain (stroke), Meg Held, Becky Lederer, and Gina Perri, who clocked in at 6:06.76, almost six seconds ahead of fourth-place Lower Merion.

In both the fifth Manny Flick race and the New Jersey championships, the Mount varsity eight (Sarah Opper [cox], Megan McCusker [stroke], Julie Powers, Francesca Crozier-Fitzgerald, Meredith Walsh, Mary Grace Maggiano, Amanda Chain, Emily Walker, and Margaret Flynn) was the runner-up, just half-a-second off the winning time. At Cities the V-8 struggled, placing second in one of three heats with the fourth-best time, and then coming in fifth in the final race (5:08.07; split 10.78 sec.), which was won by Bishop Eustace.

MSJ’s Second Eight wound up with identical placements in its two races, and the Magic’s JV Four was sixth both in the head race and the final.