June 5, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Chestnut Hill Academy duo bags bronze at crew Nationals
by TOM UTESCHER

It may not have seemed cost-effective for Chestnut Hill Academy to send just two scullers down south to the Scholastic Rowing Association of America National Championships on May 23 and 24, but seniors Sam Franklin and Pete Miller certainly delivered some bang for the Blue Devils’ buck.

Although they’d been racing together in a senior double for just over a month, the CHA duo captured the bronze medal at the SRAA’s, which was staged at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, TN.

Springside School’s successful junior quad was eligible to participate in the regatta and even appeared on the race schedule, but in the end the Lions decided not to make the trip down.

It ended up being a relatively inexpensive venture for the CHA boat, since as Blue Devils coach Steve McGuinn explained, “We went with Haverford [School, a fellow Inter-Ac League member]. Their coach, Jim Barker, Jr., was nice enough to take care of us and give us a free trip down.”

Franklin, who’ll enter the University of Pennsylvania this fall, and Miller, who’s bound for Bates College, started out their senior season as the bow and stroke rowers in a CHA varsity quad. After several races in March and early April, it became apparent that this boat wasn’t going to be a world-beater, and McGuinn decided to break up the unit.

Henry Meigs embarked on a solo career in a senior single, and Sam Baker, still an 11th grader, soon became a member of the Blue Devils’ strong JV quad. It was decided that the other two athletes in the disbanded crew would be paired up in the senior double.

“Pete and I have always had the same sort of body-type and body mass, so in breaking up that quad, we matched up the best,” Franklin explained. “Also, we were the only two members of the team that have been rowing for four years [Meigs took up crew as a sophomore].”

Coach McGuinn agreed, “They match up very well. They’re technically very sound rowers and they apply the power efficiently. They can beat much larger guys because they’re so efficient and they work so well together.”

In the fifth race of the annual Manny Flick series, the last of the “regular season” outings on the Schuylkill, the newly-formed duo finished first, hitting the wire almost 20 seconds ahead of the runner-up tandem. After one final fling in the varsity quad at the New Jersey State Championships (CHA was third, but 36 seconds off the lead), Miller and Franklin would stay in their double the rest of the way. When the Philadelphia City Championships rolled around the next weekend (May 4), Haverford appeared with a varsity double of its own, winning the gold medal while CHA came in second.

The Devils still appeared poised to medal at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, and earned a spot in the finals. There, they confronted a headwind that kicked up whitecaps on the river, conditions that favored the physically larger crews rather than the CHA scullers, who are closer to the size of lightweight-class athletes.

“We’re 5’10” and no more than about 160 lbs.,” noted Franklin, who struggled to a sixth-place finish along with Miller.

He said of the conditions, “It was something that we hadn’t had enough experience rowing in to be able to do well.”

The following weekend, they found the environment on Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge more to their liking.

Franklin explained, “I believe it’s a dam-controlled lake, and the Tennessee Valley Authority can control the water levels. There was no current and relatively little wind when we were down there; it was flat water every day.”

“We were very fortunate in being able to take their boat down there,” McGuinn said, “because the one they’d been using is really tailored for them – it’s a lightweight double, almost. Our other doubles don’t fit them that well; they kind of bounce around in them.”

On Friday, May 23, CHA won one of the two semifinal races with a time of five minutes, six-and-two-tenths seconds. A boat from Southgate Anderson High School (a Detroit-area crew that had finished third at Stotesbury) won the other semi in 4:43.7, and Haverford was second in 4:54.2.

In the championship race, CHA, Haverford, and the Michigan twosome quickly separated themselves from the other three finalists. Roughly halfway through the race, Anderson made a move and Haverford went with them. They captured the gold and silver medals, respectively, with times of 5:07.5 and 5:08.9. Chestnut Hill couldn’t keep pace with the two leaders, but as they became bronze medalists with a time of 5:16.5, the Blue Devils were still well ahead of fourth-place Don Bosco Prep (NJ), which came in at 5:25.9.

Miller and Franklin have continued to work out since returning from SRAA’s, since both plan to pursue the sport in college.

“I hope they stick with it,” McGuinn said, “because they’ll make great college lightweights.”