June 5, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Mount V-8 takes gold at Scholastic Nationals
by TOM UTESCHER

Left to Right:  Mount St. Joe’s varsity coach Mike McKenna with the varsity eight bow pair, Laura Pospisil (left) and Megan SchluckebierThe three and four-seat pair, Chierika Ukogu (left ) and Katy Gregor; Five and six-seaters Mary Duff (left) and Meg Kehan; Coxswain Devon Stewart (center) gets a ride from the Mount’s stern pair, Mary Maginnis (left) and Mer Weber.

The four seniors in the Mount St. Joseph Academy varsity eight, Meg Kehan (six seat), Megan Schluckebier (bow), Devon Stewart (cox) and Meredith Weber (seven) began their tenure with the Magic as members of the undefeated freshman eight in 2005, but a few weeks ago it didn’t look as if their Mount careers would end in the same kind of storybook fashion.

After enjoying a good deal of success during the first half of the 2008 schedule, the V-8 hadn’t won a race since mid-April. But with a relatively young crew rounded out by a junior and four tenth-graders, the Magic felt they would have room for improvement up until the end of the season, and they were right. On May 24 at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, TN, the Mount secured their most important victory of the year, winning the gold medal at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America National Championships. After coming in second in their semifinal race, the Magic won the final by almost three seconds.

Speaking to the LOCAL a few hours after the event, Stewart gushed, “It was awesome; we pulled away in the first 500 [meters]. We were kind of underdogs going into it, because we didn’t win our heat at the beginning, which would have automatically put us in the semifinals.”

Stewart and Kehan will both enter Harvard University in the fall, while Schluckbier will attend Drexel University and Weber will head for Bucknell. The stroke in the boat, Mary Maginnis, is the lone junior, and the four sophomores are Mary Duff (five seat), Katy Gregor (four), Laura Pospisil (two), and Chierika Ukogu (three).

Although Mount varsity coach Mike McKenna felt the tenth-graders had proved they belonged in the boat, he knew he was giving up some experience to rival V-8 crews.

“The idea throughout the year,” he explained, “was just be patient and continue to build. It was a fairly steady progression, and by the end of the season I was pretty confident that we were going to show well.”

For the Mount’s flagship, the 2007-2008 school year began auspiciously with a successful fall season, culminating in the school’s first V-8 victory in the Bill Braxton Memorial Regatta in November. Over the winter there were a few personnel changes, but as before, there were four sophomores in the boat.

On the first day of March, U.S. Rowing coaches visited the Magic’s Conshohocken headquarters for one of the regional “ID” camps that are held at the start of each season. Maginnis was chosen to attend National Selection Camp, the pool from which the junior national team crews will be picked this summer. Gregor was tabbed for the U.S. Developmental “A” camp, and fellow sophomores Duff and Ukogu earned invitations to the “B” Camp (in the past two other members of the boat, Kehan and Stewart, had participated in the junior national program).

It was off to the races on March 16, when the annual Manny Flick series began. The Magic placed first in each of the first four Flicks, as well as winning the St. Andrew’s School Invitational, and the Mount’s own Shoebie Cup Invitational, which included New Jersey powers Holy Spirit and Mainland High School.

The string of victories ended on April 19, when the Mount finished second at the Mercer Lake (NY) Sprints to the host crew from the Mercer Junior Rowing Club. The split was 1.35 seconds in the final, which was a 2000-meter race as opposed to the 1500 meters common in high school regattas. The following day Mainland, which had not raced at Mercer, defeated the Mount by nine-tenths of a second in the fifth and final Manny “Flick.”

It would take more than a month for the Mounties to make their way back into the winner’s circle. They were second to Spirit at the New Jersey state championships, and while another Garden State crew, Bishop Eustace, took the gold medal at the Philadelphia City Championships, the Mount straggled across the line in fourth place, with Maginnis almost doubled over with a stomach virus.

Over the years, Mount varsity eight crews have tended to be relatively light in weight. More than once, this has put them at a disadvantage in the grandest annual event on the Schuylkill, the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, where physically-larger rowers tend to cope better with the headwinds that frequently visit the Kelly Drive course. The gusts were unusually severe this year, and overall the Magic weren’t disappointed to win a silver medal, coming in behind repeat champion Eustace.

Although they hadn’t won for awhile now, Kehan reflected, “I don’t think we ever lost our confidence, as some crews might have done. I think the weather and the conditions and our mindset at Nationals all just came together and made it a really good race.”

Starting out in the SRAA heat races on Friday, May 23, the Mount came in second in its heat and was forced to work back through the repechage stage. The first-place crews had advanced directly into one of the three semifinal contests, but the Magic weren’t particularly worried since their heat winner, Saratoga High School, had moved at a blistering pace, and the Mount’s time was actually the second-fastest overall.

The Magic won their repechage quarterfinal, then met up with Saratoga once more in the semi’s. The New Yorkers were first again, but this time by less than seven-tenths of a second, and as runner-up, the Mount also moved on to the six-boat championship race.

“It didn’t really bother us that Saratoga was faster than us in the heats and in the semifinals,” Weber said. “I don’t think we needed to go all out to try and beat them in the semi’s; we just wanted to be ahead of Mainland for second place, so that we were able to advance.”

“Before the finals,” she went on, “we didn’t think that much about Saratoga. We felt that if we stayed within ourselves, and rowed our race, we would win.”

Melton Hill Lake, its waters regulated by dams at each end, offered current-free conditions and, on this weekend, very little wind.

The Mount V-8 would be competing against formidable club crews at Youth Nationals in mid-June, but for the seniors, the SRAA final would be the last true high school race of their careers.

“Before the big races, the seniors usually have a little huddle together and talk about what we want to do,” Schluckebier said.

A year earlier, Schluckebier had been rowing at the opposite end of the boat, but for her senior season she was moved all the way up from the stroke seat (right by the coxswain at the stern) to the bow.

She observed, “We don’t really look around during a race, but in bow you do get a better sense of where the other boats are. You also really get into the rhythm what your crew is doing, because you can actually see everyone else in the boat as well as feel how the boat is moving.”

Both Saratoga and Eustace were strong starters, so it was crucial that the Mount not give ground as the finals got underway.

“We hit the start very well, which gave the kids confidence,” Coach McKenna said. “The adrenaline rush from leading by a few seats after the starting sequence really helped them push it out, and at the point in the race where sometimes crews might come back on us, we were continuing to extend our lead.”

Just about everyone at the venue anticipated a bowball-to-bowball battle all the way down the course, but halfway through, the race wasn’t shaping up as expected. The MSJ coxswain, Stewart, perched at the rear of the big eight, counted off seats in rival boats as the Magic moved ahead of them.

Kehan recounted, “Initially, Devon said we had five and six on Eustace, and then 300 meters later she said ‘I’m looking at five and six on Saratoga.’ Then we got all crazed and we were just hauling on it.”

Mount St. Joe won in five minutes, six and 55/100 seconds, while Spirit came on to take the silver medal in 5:09.51. They were followed by Saratoga (5:10.14), Eustace (5:11.62), New Trier High School from Illinois (5:14.30), and H.B. Plant High School from Florida (5:21.34).

Maginnis, the Mount stroke, related, “Devon said she would jump on me if we won the race, and she did, and I was hugging Mer [Weber], and we were all unbelievably happy.”

Asked about how his crew had improved during the 2008 season, McKenna replied, “They were rowing longer [strokes] on a consistent basis, and probably more important than that, they were rowing with passion and with abandon, without any fear of what was going to happen to their bodies throughout the race. Someone once mentioned to me that rowing in a championship race is kind of like holding hands with eight girls and jumping off a cliff, knowing you’ll be alright. Our kids finally got to that point.”