More Mount medals at crew "Nationals"

by TOM UTESCHER

At the 2004 Scholastic Rowing Association of America championships on May 28 & 29, Mount St. Joseph Academy's freshman eight became the third Magic boat to win a gold medal in a major national regatta.

Braving the humid, 96-degree weather on the course in Orlando, FL, the Mount ninth graders made it through the qualifying heats and the semifinals and then won the championship race in five minutes, 46.06 seconds. Coxswain Jane Mieczkowski commanded an octet made up by (stroke through bow) Amanda Chain, Mollie Flynn, Meg McCusker, Stephanie Farris, Emily Walker, Kara Lederer, Patty Murphy, and Kristin O'Neill.

Two weeks earlier, the MSJ freshmen had captured a silver medal at the Stotesbury Regatta on the Schuylkill, where the Magic's lightweight and junior eights each won gold. At SRAA's, the lightweights collected a silver medal and the junior boat came in fourth in its final. With its lightweight four also claiming fourth place overall, the five-year-old Mount St. Joe team must be regarded as one of the most successful women's crew programs in the nation this year.

The Magic freshmen got off to a strong start as the SRAA's began on May 28, winning the second of four qualifying races and posting the fastest time overall. Disaster struck at the beginning of the Mount's semifinal race. In the bow, the retaining collar broke on O'Neill's oar; this piece helps position the oar in the rigger which is attached to the shell itself, and without this plastic ring it's nearly impossible to deliver a proper stroke.

"It happened three strokes into the race, and I couldn't even put the oar in without crabbing," O'Neill said. "The official didn't understand what had happened, so he let the race go on."

Coming in last out of the sixth boats, it appeared that the locals would not make the finals, but there were grounds for an appeal. In the event of catastrophic equipment failure early in a race, it is the official's duty to call the boats back to be restarted once the problem is resolved.

Flynn related "Our coxswain put her hand up at the end of the race and then she went down with our coach to make a protest. The ref admitted he should have stopped the race, and they made a seventh lane for us in the finals. We were kind of in the weeds and lily pads."

In the championship race, the MSJ ninth graders ploughed through the smattering of vegetation in their lane like a turbocharged weedwhacker.

"Jane (the cox) was telling us that we were behind, but we weren't," Flynn remembered. "We were winning the whole race but she wanted us to keep on going, I think because [Holy] Spirit beat us with a sprint at the end when we raced at Stotesbury."

O'Neill, who used one of the varsity eight's spare oars for the contest, said "I didn't look out of the boat to see where we were, but it felt like we were going really well."

The Magic easily bested runner-up Archbishop Prendergast (5:46.06 to 5:53.04) by seven seconds, and the other five finalists were all in the six-minute bracket, including third-place Spirit (6:03.02).

Flynn's sister Margaret, a junior, was racing in the Magic's lightweight eight, which had won every event it entered in 2004, including the Stotesbury Regatta. At nationals they would face another undefeated crew, a boat from Saratoga (NY) High School which had not appeared in Philadelphia this spring. Due to a limited number of entries, the lightweight crews went straight into their semifinals without a qualifying round, and while the Magic won the first of these races, Saratoga won the other semi with a time that was a full 20 seconds faster.

The first/second split in the final race was much smaller - a little under two seconds - but Saratoga (5:38.07) was still faster than runner-up MSJ (5:40.03), while Prendie was third (5:44.07). The order in the Mount boat (Sarah Opper [cox], Jen Hesson, Emilie Glavin, Christen Scanlon, Catena Crozier-Fitzgerald, Francesca Crozier-Fitzgerald, Julia Ellis, Julie Powers, Margaret Flynn) was somewhat different that it had been at Stotesbury or at the City Championships, where the Magic had won by 16 seconds.

"Saratoga started sprinting really early, and they rowed at a high rate throughout," the elder Flynn related. "I think if we'd seen them before and knew what race-plan to expect, we could've beaten them. We made a big move at the end to come back from more than a length off of them."

Mount St. Joe's junior eight posted the best qualifying time in its category and then finished second in its semifinal. Just before the championship race, after the crews had been sitting out in the sun for roughly two hours, a member of the Magic crew began to feel ill. Because she occasionally suffers from an irregular heartbeat, the afflicted rower was taken to shore and a replacement was brought in.

Two rowers switched seats in the boat, as well, and the Mount line-up of Kaitlin McDonald (cox), Christine Quinn, Ali Bono, Katie Bolger, Meredith Walsh, Erin Whitham, Liz McDonald, Molly Merlini and Carol Petermann went on to finish fourth in 5:57.07, while Loyola Academy (IL) won in 5:43.08.

The other fourth-place MSJ boat, the lightweight four, had Liz Daniels in the cox box and was powered by Saibh Madden, Christine Laskowski, Kate Shaeffer and Kelly O'Neill. This MSJ vessel finished second in its qualifying heat, and in this case that meant a trip straight to the finals. The Magic clocked in at 6:37.04 in the championship race, while Kearney (NJ) won in 6:19.05.

Another MSJ four, racing in the senior category, was first in one of five qualifying heats. In their semifinal race the Mount quintet (Danielle Ohman [cox], Jean Mackell, Emily Kuchinos, Amanda Burke, Rachel Voss) came in fourth, one place shy of the finish needed to move on into the final. Two other Magic crews, the varsity eight and junior four, were unable to advance out of the qualifying round.

"The varsity really had a tough draw in their heat," observed MSJ assistant coach Mike McKenna. "Because Loyola and Saratoga didn't come to Stotesbury, they were treated as unseeded crews, and they got put in with us and Episcopal, which were both in the top five at Stotesbury. Those other two schools have strong programs and they both went all the way through to the final and finished in the top four."