The "postseason" in crew began last weekend with the Philadelphia City Championships, and area rowers assembled along Kelly Drive to mine the Schuylkill for precious medals.

In the big boat categories, all five of the eights entered by Mount St. Joseph Academy won gold medals, and also climbing to the top of the awards podium were the scullers in the girls' JV quad and girls' varsity double from Germantown Friends School, and the girls' JV double from Penn Charter.

Silver medals went to Springside Chestnut Hill Academy's boys' freshman/novice double and girls' JV quad, the boys' JV double and girls' freshman quad from GFS, and PC's girls' gig/novice single. Coming in third in their events and collecting bronze medals were the girls' JV quad from Germantown Academy, the girls' varsity quad from SCH, and two GFS varsity boats, the boys' single and the boys' quad.

In order to advance to the medal races on Sunday, most crews had to meet qualifying standards in timed head races on Saturday. In categories where there were many entries, there was a semifinal stage between the qualifiers and the finals. In events with six or fewer entries, the crews only raced in Sunday's final round.

The girls' freshman quad event fell into this latter category, and was one of the earliest races in the finals. Here, a Germantown Friends foursome (Theodora Farrell, Leela Rajagopalan, Ivy Schaenen, Kavya Senthil) made their lone race count, coming away with the silver medal.

Soon after that, Mount St. Joe picked up its first gold medal as the freshman eight (Cox: Aislynn Costello, Sophia Prosperi, Molly Groark, Christian Robinson, Addison McKenna, Ava Kristel, Callie Zapalac, Ainsley Short, Megan Bell) stormed down the course to finish a dozen seconds ahead of runner-up Mainland High School.

Next, silver medals were earned by Penn Charter in the girls' gig/novice single (Vivienne Riley) and by the SCH lads in the freshman/novice double (Marshall Minor, Roman McNichols).

A second group of young Mounties, assembled in the novice eight (Cox: Bridget Murray, Alana Fabrey, Summer Caulfield, Natalie Peddicord, Lynn Remy, Maeve Ruibal, Katie Canalley, Tierney Williams, Isabella Scott), won their final race with seven seconds to spare over Philadelphia City Rowing.

The girls' JV double from Penn Charter (Hannah Aldinger, Liliana DeMartinis) was successful throughout the spring, but in the qualifier and the semifinals at Cities, a duo from Lower Merion High School earned slightly faster times. In the finals, however, the Quakers took the gold medal five seconds ahead of the Aces.

There was a Friends Schools League battle in the boys' JV double, and although Friends Select emerged with the victory, the silver medal went to Luca Farrell and Aiden Dunleavy of the Tigers, who raced in a quad earlier in the season.

The finals field in the girls' JV quad consisted almost entirely of area independent school crews, and between them engineered a one-two-three finish. An assertive GFS quartet (Isabella Ammon, Nola Schaenen, Kate Mardeusz, Sylvia Kim) won the gold, while SCH (Charlotte Trayes, Elizabeth O'Brien, Iris Dobeck, Ariya Goswami) snagged the silver, and GA (Sophia Song, Mirabelle Hayes, Alex Brown, Nina Sager) won the bronze medal.

The JV eight final quickly developed into a two-boat race between the fastest qualifier, Mount St. Joseph (Cox: Alice Baker, Ella Kurek, Marianna Rambo, Shay Gura, Aubrey Sheehan, Olivia Weissman, Maddie Dudley, Elyse McGlynn, Addi Ross), and Ocean City High School. A seemingly secure Mount lead dwindled as OC made a furious late push, but the Magic held on to win by one second.

Among the area schools, the first two medals of the varsity categories were both captured by Germantown Friends, starting with bronze medal in the boys' single. Here, Alex Young crossed the line less than a second after the silver medalist.

In the girls' varsity double, Lower Merion led for much of the race, but the GFS duo (Lyla Conley, Lila Donovan) passed them in the final 500 meters to claim the gold medal. Near the end, Lower Merion was also overtaken by Ridgewood (New Jersey) High School, which finished four seconds behind the Tigers.

In the varsity quads, the SCH girls (Evelyn Seawright, Nadia Stockman, Emma Schwartz, Caitlin Keough) and GFS boys (Chenyue Peng, Julien Gurvich, Quin Yannella, Adam Callahan) both won bronze medals. The Blue Devils were just 0.37 seconds off the pace of runner-up Haddon Township (New Jersey), and the Tigers were two seconds out of second place.

Competing in thinlypopulated events, neither the Mount's second eight or varsity eight did any racing before Sunday's finals, but both boats were staffed by experienced oarswomen.

The outcome in the second eight contest wasn't in doubt for long, as the Magic (Cox: Sydney Fluke, Molly Chipman, Addison Marques, Amelia McElroy, Ramsey Tabor, Alexia Levine, Maggie Mullaney, Maddie Kristel, Ryan Salvitti) put the hammer down and came in 10 seconds ahead of number two Montclair (New Jersey) High School.

Montclair's varsity boat, however, came in with a reputation for speed and grabbed the early lead outside in lane six. The Mounties (Cox: Kayleigh Costello, Kate Marsden, Ava Smith, Olivia Duffy, Addy Smith, Eva Getty, Zoe Truitt, Vanessa Ksiazek, Katie Duffy) moved on the Jersey crew a little more than halfway down the course and took over the lead. Later, they countered a Montclair sprint and won the gold medal in a time of 4:58.41 to Montclair's 5:00.50.