Finally, a really nice day on the river! On Sunday area rowers gathered for the last day of racing in the annual Manny Flick/Horvat series, and were greeted by sunshine, mild breezes, and a dry atmosphere after having to perform in some miserable conditions earlier this spring.

As in the third Flick in early April, boys' events were held mostly in the morning, with girls' competition coming later on the schedule.

In the very first event of the day Germantown Academy could celebrate a victory as Haiden Bonczek won the boys gig/novice single event as he finished more than half-a-minute ahead of his closest rival.

Next up for the Patriots, Jack Wescott, Umang Mittal, Maloy Lafferty, and Utsav Mittal won the second flight of the novice quad, posting the third best time overall. Springside Chestnut Hill (Andrew Saunders, Keith Angell, Declan Lemole, Brendan Jolly) finished third in the other flight in this category.

Penn Charter saw Duncan Riley place second in the JV single, as he logged the fourth-fastest time out of the two heats.

The faster of the two sections in the JV quad had Germantown Friends (Joshua Cappiello, Luke Lendler, Luca Bergamini, Julian Cheung) capture third place, while Penn Charter (Eli Moulton, James Foley, Jack Bowen, Mac Haines) took fourth.

GFS lightweights Zach Branas and Ian Kohn were victorious in the second flight of the double event, although Luca Belmonte and Sammy Meyer of SCH came down the course a bit faster in the quick first flight, placing third. A number of boats originally entered by the Tigers ended up not racing due to COVID-19 protocols.

Samuel Halfpenny of the SCH Blue Devils was slotted into what proved to be the faster of two heats in the varsity single, so his third-place finish there gave him the third fastest time overall.

Penn Charter's James Glomb and Scott Sweeney won the third flight in the varsity double, but it was the first flight that produced the top four times in the event. In the second section, second place went to Michael Jackaman and Brendan Page of Germantown Academy.

The varsity quad raced by Springside Chestnut Hill (Charles Miles, Jude Halfpenny, Jack Stephenson, Andrew Topping) secured second place in its race, a little over three seconds behind an Inter-Ac League rival, Haverford School.

Due to a large field, the JV double event followed a time-trial format near the end of the boys' program, and SCH had Elias Eckert and Matt Leon-Palfrey emerge as the top tandem out of the 13 entries.

GA had led off the boys' racing at Flick five with a victory, and SCH did the same thing when girls' competition got underway. Agharese Olagunju-McWilliams walked away with the gig/novice single race, winning by 18 seconds. Germantown Friends was the winner in the novice quad, as Emilia Cropf, Lila Donovan, Lola Kress, and Hailey Alt logged the best overall time while winning the first of two flights.

SCH's "A" boat (Madeline Percy, Joye Wingard, Ava Chavez, Maeve O'Connor) won the second section in this category and was just a little over a second off of the pace set by the Tigers in the previous race. Another Blue Devil boat in the second flight was the runner-up, thanks to Nadia Stockman, Emily Eisenman, Emma Schwartz, and Caitlin Keough.

In time trials in the freshman eight, Mount St. Joseph (Kylie Reichert-cox, Maddie Kristel, Maggie Mullaney, Alexia Levine, Katie Scanlon, Molly Chipman, Zoe Truitt, Vanessa Ksiazek, Ramsey Tabor) was timed third out of a dozen vessels, with Montclair High School winning and another New Jersey crew, Holy Spirit, edging the Magic by a fraction of a second.

The Mount's JV four topped a 20-boat field in time trials; the Magic out-sped the second-place crew by more than eight seconds thanks to Sarah Mark (cox), Anna Ledwith, Molly Maher, Julia Fede, and Emily Feilke.

In the JV double, Penn Charter (Charlotte Baker, Grace Agosto) placed second in the first flight and SCH (Olivia Caione, Alexandra Cross) was runner-up in the second. By the clock, the Blue Devils were four seconds quicker than the Quakers.

The three fastest times in the JV quad all came out of the first of the two flights. Here, Episcopal Academy was sandwiched between victorious Germantown Friends (Rebecca Rasmussen, Natalie Lau, Lucy Yannella, Leah Cornejo) and third-place Penn Charter (Ellie Choate, Merrill Gadsden, Lindsay Gadsden, Ella Bretschneider).

With a time 10 seconds slower than PC, Germantown Academy (Aisosa Idahosa, Ryleigh Dougherty, Sarah Beth Sandifer, Olivia Shafer) defeated the four boats it faced to win the second flight.

A successful boat for the Mount this spring, the lightweight four, had Giovanna Consiglio as coxswain this time out and a new bow seat in Sonia Marhefka (both actually appeared in this event last season). The three in between remained the same as in Flick four (Aoife Meacle, Norah McGlynn, Grace Kyle), and the Magic chewed up the competition with the best time out of the two flights by a margin of seven seconds.

In the varsity quad, the second flight featured a one-two finish by Springside Chestnut Hill (Gabriela Leon-Palfrey, Samantha Simon, Ashley Keough, Kaia McTigue) and Germantown Academy (Rebecca Zaki, Olivia Pacitti, Jenna Nolan, Blythe Berlinger). The Blue Devils crossed the line almost 20 seconds before the Patriots, but as in weeks past, the overall time to beat was recorded by Agnes Irwin in the first flight.

Even in the fifth Flick, essentially the close of the regular season, Mount St. Joseph had its true JV eight and second eight entered in the varsity event, along with the Magic's actual varsity eight.

They were distributed through the three flights, and first up was the "real" V-8 (Annmarie Wallis-cox, Kelly Cleary, Kathryn Sponseller, Maggie Horgan, Leah Manzo-McCottry, Sarah Powell, Alexa Konowal, Caroline Johnson, Grace Hartzell). 

New Jersey's Moorestown High School is proving a worthy competitor this spring, and the Magic had to work hard to earn the win in four minutes, 42.75 seconds. The Garden State group was runner-up in 4:44.69, nine seconds ahead of the next crew in the flight. Their times were easily the fastest overall.

The cohort that actually makes up the Mount JV eight (for the time being) was in the second varsity flight, and this outfit (Angelina Baker-cox, Clara Pagano, Sabrina Borzi, Nina Rowello, Maya McCottry, Alexa Kennedy, Ellie Fazio, Michaela Kowalski, Kari Prosperi) faced a rival from McLean, Va., Langley High School. The Magic won by nearly six seconds over the out-of-state squad.

The third flight also featured a boatload of Virginians, this one representing Bishop Ireton High School of Alexandria. They ended up a distant third in this three-boat heat, while what is actually the Mount St. Joe second eight (Chloe Van de Meulebroecke-cox, Grace McDonough, Julia Geib, Francesca Fede, Meghan Krumenacker, Allegra Rawson, Kate Kelly, Evelyn McGreevey, Caitlin O'Reilly) won by four seconds over a more familiar foe, Gwynedd Mercy Academy.

Now it's on to the first of the big "medal" regattas in May, the Philadelphia City Championships that will be held over the first full weekend of the month.