Springside quad wins national gold, others make finals
by Tom Utescher

The golden girls from Springside’s national champion junior quad (from left): Larissa Sfedu, Katie Fitzkee, Taylor Apostolico, Jenn Arcidiacono.

Springside School and Chestnut Hill Academy only entered a total of three boats at the 2008 Scholastic Rowing Association of America National Regatta last weekend, so they made sure they were good ones.

In the two-day event at Lake Mercer near Princeton, N.J., all three “CHASS” crews went through to the final round, and Springside’s junior quad came away with a gold medal. The only sweep boat (one oar per rower) in the sculling-oriented CHASS fleet, Springside’s junior four, started out in a field of 31 competitors and reached the final round, finishing sixth. CHA’s senior double also made it through to the finals on Saturday afternoon, and came in fourth overall.

The national champions in Springside’s junior quad were (stroke to bow) junior Jenn Arcidiacono, sophomore Taylor Apostolico, and juniors Katie Fitzkee and Larissa Sfedu. They won their final by 1.672 seconds, holding off a foursome from Canada’s Denis Morris High School, one of many strong rowing programs in the vicinity of St. Catherine’s, Ontario.

Springside’s other SRAA entry, the junior four, raced for the first time this spring at the fifth Manny Flick regatta in late April. After a change at coxswain, the final line-up was locked in with junior Laura Chisholm as cox, sophomores Verity Walsh, Sofia Soto-Reyes, and Becca Chasar in the stroke, three, and two seats, and junior Allie Colina in the bow.

In one of five opening-round heats on Friday morning, Springside placed first while registering the fifth-fastest time overall. That put the Lions in one of three semifinals; from each of these contests, the top two crews would move on to the finals. Winning its semi in six minutes, 22.489 seconds, Springside made it to the final race, where the going got really tough and the Lions came in sixth. Long Island’s Manhasset High School, a very fast boat throughout the weekend, took the gold medal.

Like the Springside four, CHA’s senior double was put together in the middle of the season. Seniors Don Leatherwood (Yale University) and Marty Schardt (Trinity College) had started out as members of a senior quad, but many rival quads in the Philly area practice year-round, and the late-starting Blue Devils saw by their times in the early races that they could not become serious contenders. Leatherwood enjoyed great success rowing in a club double in major regattas last summer, so CHA coach Steve McGuinn tried him out in the two-man craft along with Schardt.

The Blue Devil duo won the New Jersey State Championships and the Philadelphia City Championships, then ran into national-level competition at Stotesbury (where they finished fifth) and at the SRAA’s. In the latter event, Leatherwood and Schardt were able to go straight to the finals after one qualifying race. The top three advanced from each of the initial heats, and CHA was third in its section.

A perusal of the overall times indicated a tough row was in store for the Devils in the medal race. They wound up in fourth place in Saturday’s final, which Cincinnati Country Day School won by almost four seconds, but the Chestnut Hill tandem took some satisfaction in finishing ahead of Philly’s Roman Catholic, the Stotesbury silver medalist, and their own Inter-Ac League rival, Haverford School.

Last spring, Springside’s junior quad would have been a strong gold medal contender at SRAA nationals, but the regatta was in Tennessee and for several reasons the Lions’ quartet could not make the trip. Two members of that boat, Katherine Roberts and Kelsey Trueblood, became seniors this year, and early in the 2009 campaign they rejoined Arcidiacono and Fitzkee, this time in a senior quad.

In April, it was decided to pair up the two upperclassmen in a senior double, while the other two scullers went into a junior quad where the final line-up would include Apostolico and Sfedu. Roberts and Trueblood won the New Jersey State Championships and were silver medalists at the City Championships. This qualified them for a berth at the SRAA’s, but with Trueblood injured, the duo had to withdraw.

The junior quad, meanwhile, captured a gold medal at the City Championships, and won silver at Stotesbury, where they were edged out by 1.82 seconds by victorious Ursuline Academy (Dallas, Texas). The Usruline crew, which had competed as a varsity quad through much of the season, did not attend SRAA’s, but Springside still had to worry about two other boats that looked strong at Stotesbury, bronze medalist Friends Academy (from upstate New York) and fourth-place Denis Morris.

Like CHA’s double, the Springside quad was able to advance from a qualifying race straight to the finals. In that initial contest, a long, strong sprint got the Lions across the line 10 seconds ahead of runner-up Conestoga High School. Surprisingly Denis Morris, which was 13 seconds off the winning pace at Stotesbury, won its section with an even faster time than Springside’s.

“We were a little worried about Denis Morris when we saw they were two seconds faster than us,” admitted Arcidiacono. “When we talked to Silke [Brunner, Springside’s head coach] before the finals she said not to stick to a rigid plan. We wanted to work off what the other boats were doing, move when they moved.”

With about 300 meters to go and the Lions leading by almost a boatlength, the Canadians began to sprint and picked up a few seats. In the last 100, Springside responded and stopped giving ground, holding on to win the gold.

As they lined up with their medals in front of the SRAA banner, it was clear that this group had won with skill, not pure power. At 5’8”, Arcidiacono is the biggest of the bunch, and the diminutive Sfedu is smaller than most coxswains in the sweep boats.

Conscious of the boost an SRRA victory would give to the entire Springside program, Fitzkee noted, “We haven’t had a first place win in a while, so we did it for our coaches, and for ourselves. It was great.”