Conestoga Crew Rowers Qualify for National Championships

While the weather threatened throughout the day at Mercer Lake, NJ for US Rowing’s Mid-Atlantic District Championship regatta on Saturday, it was the Conestoga Crew rowers who took the rowing venue by storm as a record twenty-two rowers had top-three finishes to qualify for the Youth National Championships next month (June 7 – 9) in Oak Ridge, TN.

The morning featured qualifying races with all eight Conestoga boats entered moving on to the afternoon Finals.   The Womens Youth Ltwt Varsity 2X Final featured the Conestoga Womens Ltwt 4X crew divided into “doubles” boats with Emer Ryle and Katie Groves finishing 2^nd, and Jenny Alcorn and Maddy Amsterdam finishing 3^rd.  The next event was the Womens Youth Varsity 2X with Molly Dudrear and Brianna Kaufmann finishing 2^nd.  The early successes were quickly followed with a 2^nd place finish by Niall Carlson and Steven Devlin in the  Mens Youth Ltwt Varsity 2X, then another 2^nd place finish by Andrey Lanahan and Jared Ingersoll in the Mens Youth Varsity 2X event. 

As if to give the Conestoga Crew supporters watching the races a pause to settle down after the excitement of the early events, Mother Nature intervened with wind and rain to suspend racing for a time.  With resumption of racing, the crew of Anne Graf, Maddy Tessier-Kay, Megan Hudson, and Rebecca Simonetti won the Womens Youth Varsity 4X and Sarah Thomas, Annina Ruggerillo, Amy Connell, and Isabel Geddes finished 2^nd in the same Womens Youth Varsity 4X event.    The crew of Sean Pepin, Nathan Leibowitz, Tyler Simpson, and Brian Kane concluded the day of racing with a 2^nd place finish in the Mens Youth Varsity 4X event.

Other Conestoga boats competing at the Mid-Atlantic District Championship regatta on Saturday included Max Malarkey, Nick McNamara, Richard Stone, and Hanan Zisling finishing 2^nd in the Mens Youth 2nd 4X event, while Angela Sarkisian, Sophie Bodek, Madeline Beirne, and Rachael Devlin were winners of the Womens Youth 2nd 4X race.

The Conestoga Crew Club team is back home on the Schuylkill river next Friday and Saturday for the Stotesbury Cup regatta, the largest scholastic regatta in the country.  For complete race results from this past weekend and earlier competitions, visit the Conestoga Crew website: www.conestogacrew.org/regattas.