May 3, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Springside quads clean up at NJ champs
by TOM UTESCHER

The gold medals for both the girls junior varsity and varsity quad events at the New Jersey State Rowing Championships made a trip across the Delaware River thanks to Springside School, which won both events on the Cooper River course outside of Camden last Saturday afternoon.

A tailwind persisted through much of the regatta, but the occasionally overcast skies didn’t actually shed any rain until after the racing had concluded.

An “open” championship which attracted a number of crews from outside the Garden State, the event not only gave Springside and Chestnut Hill Academy rowers the chance to collect some hardware, but also to race at the Cooper venue where the Scholastic Rowing Association of America (SRAA) championship regatta will be held May 25 & 26.

In many categories, the large number of entries made it necessary to hold qualifying head races early in the day in order to select the schools which would race in the finals. Neither of the Lions’ quads had to go through this process, passing straight through into their final races.

Leading from start to finish, the JV boat pulled by (stroke to bow) Carolyn Chisholm, Katherine Roberts, Julia Ryan, and Holly Bailey finished up in a time of 5:42.95, winning the gold medal by more than 16 seconds over Friends Academy (5:59.30), which narrowly beat out Montclair (5:59.60) for second place. Another Montclair craft was a distant fourth in 6:34.42.

In a two-boat final in the varsity quad class, Springside’s Nell Sorensen, Sarah Patches, Sarah Souli, and Christine Giovinazzo also faced a crew from Montclair, a northern New Jersey school which focuses primarily on quad and fours racing. The contest was closer than the JV race but still not a true nailbiter, as the Lions won by just over seven seconds, 5:42.10 to 5:49.21.

Montclair got the better of the Lions in another two-boat final, winning the junior double event in 6:15.83, while Springside’s Tija Bross and Kelsey Trueblood came across the line in 6:31.49. Additionally, a lightweight four for the Lions (Emily Winant, Karen Rothschild, Nicole Carbone, Wallis Furman, and coxswain Sara Heinze) placed ninth of 12 crews in head racing and missed the cut for the finals.

Of the three boats raced by Chestnut Hill Academy, one went straight into the medal round, while the other two needed to qualify, and did. Skipping the initial step was the varsity quad containing Pete Miller, Don Leatherwood, Henry Meigs, and Nick Turner. Their spread-out final was won by Inter-Ac League foe Malvern Prep in 4:40.82, while the Blue Devils were fifth in 5:30.90 and still finished a dozen seconds ahead of Haddon Township H.S.

Malvern was the fastest qualifier in the junior quad and went on to win the gold medal in 4:54.80, while CHA’s Marty Schardt, Phil Schweitzer, James Wolters and Sam Baker qualified fourth but settled back into sixth place in the medal race, clocking in at 5:40.12.

In CHA’s sole sweep-rowing entry, a lightweight four, Sam Bissell was the coxswain and Will Rhoda, Chris Pittman, Jim Ricci, and Sam Franklin were the oarsmen. The Blue Devils were sixth in both the qualifying and in the final, turning in a time of 5:35.95 the second time down the course. Lower Merion H.S. claimed the gold medal in 5:05.70.

UPDATE: Back at the Schuylkill race course on Sunday afternoon, Springside entered two contests for members of the Girls Inter-Ac League (there were no boys races). The JV quad crew of Chisholm, Roberts, Ryan and Bailey stepped up a level to race as a varsity boat, and were victorious. The Lions, whose limited sweep rowing is usually done in a four, also competed in an eights race on Sunday with a line-up featuring Heinze (cox), Winant, Rothschild, Sorenson, Souli, Patches, Carbone, Giovinazzo and Furman. They finished third behind Agnes Irwin and Episcopal, schools that race eights regularly.