Just before this week’s summer-like heat arrived, area rowing teams enjoyed a beautiful spring afternoon last Sunday during the fourth installment of the annual Manny Flick/Horvat racing series.

Reversing the pattern of the last Flick regatta before Easter, the program started out with the boys’ races, followed by the girls’ competition later in the day.

In a strong field of boys’ freshman quads that included all-male Malvern Prep and Haverford School, Germantown Friends School had a respectable third-place finish turned in by Michael Johnson-Byrne, Adrian Madrid, Isaac Toensmeier and Jonah Tecco.

Several area schools entered the boys’ JV single event, with the best results coming from Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s Malin Lytle and Germantown Academy’s Luke Samuel. Lytle won the third of the four flights in this category, while Samuel actually recorded a faster time while finishing second in the fourth race.

There have been some minor changes in the GFS JV quad line-up since the first Flick of the season. With Zeke Hammarhead, Quin Yannella, Ryan Chi, Aiden Dunleavy in the boat on Sunday, the Tigers posted the best time out of all 15 entries, winning by two seconds in a head-to-head duel with Malvern. Coming in first in a slightly slower flight was the GFS “B” quad, manned by Julien Gurvich, Henry Noel, Sam Desai and Levi Yeomans.

SCH’s Ethan Quinn and Roman McNichols powered the runner-up boat in the second flight of the varsity double. In this category, the first flight was a bit faster, while the third section had the slowest times.

Penn Charter, which skipped the March 22 Flick and had only three entries the following week, introduced a varsity quad last Sunday. With rival crews having raced together longer, it was not particularly surprising that the Quakers (Rainer Malhotra, Liam Haines, Alexander Brown, Graham Gleason) placed fifth in their flight.

Early on in the girls’ racing, Springside Chestnut Hill had Milla Janick and Abbey Topaz win their flight of the freshman/novice double, producing the third-fastest time in the overall field.

Mount St. Joseph Academy started out with a win in its flight of the novice eight (Maddie Kelly-cox, Tess Ruppersberger-stroke, Tess McKenna, Lily Buck, Kimora Jackson, Marissa Vandiver, Addison Kurek, Addison Crawford, Avery Polto). Their Catholic Academies rival, Gwynedd Mercy, won the other flight with the best overall time.

In a freshman quad race in which wide gaps separated the top three finishers, the GFS Tigers (June Furnas, Seraphine Holt, Lena Swedloff, Emmanuelle Chen) placed second behind Agnes Irwin, an all-girls school.

There was also just one flight in the freshman eight, and here the Mount St. Joe crew (Claire Delzingaro-cox, Riley McKenna-stroke, Maeve Benedict, Emma Assaf, Grace Sheehan, Marlow Short, Bridget Bell, Margaret Miller, Alexa Marques) crushed the competition, crossing the line 18 seconds ahead of the runner-up, a Virginia crew from Alexandria City High School.

Then it was on to the junior varsity events, and in the single SCH sophomore Cori Gutgesell came in third in the faster of the two flights.

The Blue Devils also have a strong JV double featuring Linnea Klas and Alice Greenleaf, and they won the first flight with a top overall time of 7:04.85. Mika Orenstein and Sophia McCrea of GFS won the second flight in 7:19.10.

The Mount is best known for excelling in the eights categories, but the Magic put together a formidable JV four last weekend. This crew (Bridget Murray - cox, Amelia McElroy, Maeve Ruibal, Natalie Peddicord, Everly Metzger) won the third of three flights with the fastest time of all 14 schools competing in the category.

The GFS JV quad (Ivy Schaenen, Kate Mardeusz, Josie Hong-Goranin, Leela Rajagopalan) won the first flight in their event by six-and-a-half seconds. The Tigers’ time was 6:21.03, and in the second flight a time of 6:42.57 secured a victory for Penn Charter (Sophia Toncich-Mandel, Parker Grimes, Grace Choate, Vivienne Riley).

Back in the third Flick, the SCH tandem of Charlotte Harris and Taylor-Rae Hall-Callaway had been the lone entry in the lightweight double. Last Sunday, they had two other boats for company, and still won by 20 seconds over the second-place twosome.

Germantown Friends has always concentrated on sculling, but last weekend the Tigers dipped their toes into the sweep-rowing realm. The intrepid quintet (Evalina Heep-cox, Arielle Biron, Naomi Allon, Mira Aleti, Theodora Farrell) finished behind three boats from established sweep programs, but they did beat out Vineland (N.J.) High School for fourth place by 36 one-hundredths of a second.

Penn Charter saw success in the varsity double, where Hannah Aldinger and Lily DeMartinis won the second flight and put up the second fastest time overall. Conestoga High School was a little over three seconds quicker in the first section.

Springside Chestnut Hill and Germantown Academy foursomes raced together in the faster of two flights in the varsity quad. SCH (Iris Dobeck, Charlotte Trayes, Ariya Goswami, Elizabeth O’Brien) finished third and GA (Sophia Song, Mira Hayes, Devon Geist, Nina Sager) placed fourth.

As in the other Manny Flick regattas this spring, Mount St. Joseph Academy chose to forego the JV Eight and Second Eight events and enter three boats in the varsity eight category. Once again, this worked out well for the Magic.

The true varsity eight (Kayleigh Costello-cox, Kate Marsden-stroke, Maddie Dudley, Shay Gura, Emily Penza, Ava Smith, Katie Duffy, Ella Kurek, Elyse McGlynn) won the first flight by five seconds over the Virginians from Alexandria City, while the other boats in the flight were much farther behind.

In winning the second flight, the second eight or “B” boat (Alice Baker-cox, Molly Groark, Addison Marques, Ava Kristel, Megan Bell, Aubrey Sheehan, Christian Robinson, Reagan Clouser, Zoe Nguyen) registered a time that was third overall, and the runner-up in that flight was the “C” boat (the JV eight), with its crew consisting of Hadley Harris-cox, Ashlynn Loughlin-stroke, Summer Caulfield, Addison Ross, Addison McKenna, Callie Zapalac, Ainsley Short, Katie Canalley, and Izzy Scott.

The outcomes were a testament to the conditioning of the Mounties; many of the girls had participated in a regatta at St. Andrews School on Saturday, and had raced at Mercer Lake in New Jersey on Sunday morning.