Arlington-Belmont Crew Wins Six Medals at State Championships

Arlington-Belmont (AB) Crew ended its fall 2012 season by winning six medals—a gold, two silver, and three bronze—at the state championship for Massachusetts public schools. Sponsored by the Massachusetts Public Schools Rowing Association (MPSRA), this year’s regatta took place on Long Pond in Harwich and included 119 entries from 13 clubs from around the state.

The gold went to the girl’s varsity 4+ (four with coxswain), who topped the field of eight with a time of 10:48, four seconds ahead of the second place boat. Rowers included Arlington’s Catherine Tiffany, Sara Hamilton, and Julia Blass, and Meg Poterba and coxswain Daphne Schermer of Belmont.

The boy’s varsity 8+ (eight with coxswain) took silver in a field of six boats, missing gold by just over a quarter of a second and besting the third-place boat by less than one-tenth of a second. Their time was 8:41.31 compared to the winning time of 8:41.03. The crew was Andrew Friedman, Roddy Pratt, Nathan Canada, Harry Rosner, Brian O’Neill, Omar Malik, Damien Murray, and coxswain Sarah Venuti of Arlington and Belmont’s Ryan Cleary.

The girl’s varsity 8+ took bronze with a time of 7:46, just 13 seconds off the pace, against a field of eight. Rowing were Megan McMenimen, Katelyn Hamilton, Laurie VanBenschoten, Annalise Routenberg, Catherine Jacob-Dolan, Emily Seibring, Virginia White, and coxswain Anna Ferlanti from Arlington and Belmont’s Kalyani Grad-Kaimal.

Also taking bronze was the boy’s varsity 4+, racing against six other teams. Its time of 9:37 was just 10 seconds behind the winner. The crew was Ian Gilchrist and coxswain Lena Schermer of Belmont and Arlington’s Mike Tripp, Max Halliday, and Marcus Dardompre.

The junior varsity (JV) girl’s 4+ also finished third out of four boats, with a time of 12:00. The winning time in the race was 10:51. AB Crew rowers were Olivia Fan, Eva Joll, and coxswain Nicole Merullo from Belmont and Arlington’s Alex Hempel and Alex McElhoe.

The JV boy’s 8+ took fourth out of eight boats, missing bronze by less than three seconds with a time of 9:41. The winning time was 8:52. Rowing were Arlington’s Liam McDonough, Sam Magill-Dohan, Jacy Loshin, John O’Brien, Kevin Wang, and Zach Guion, and Belmont’s Nick Osborn, Sam Pratt, and coxswain Emily Savarese.

The JV boy’s 4+ finished fourth in a field of nine with a time of 10:35, just 47 seconds off the mark. Rowers included Ben Goebel, Jonathan Daniels, Evan Duffy, Mitchell Kwok, and coxswain Jessi Kirchner from Arlington.

The JV girl’s 8+ also took fourth place in a field of eight boats, with a time of 10:46, 1:16 behind the winner. Rowing for AB Crew were Kate Cornell, Meg Riley, Anja Pajevic, Molly Minniti, and Alice Lee of Arlington, and Maya Carlson, Marisa Puma, Sarah Kolenbrander, and coxswain Hannah Pratt of Belmont.

The novice boys 8+ A-boat took the silver medal in a field of 16 with a time of 9:18, just under 3 seconds behind the winning boat. The novice boys B-boat finished ninth with a time of 10:23.  The A-boat was coxed by Brenna Sorkin from Belmont, and rowed by Ekim Otucu, Trey Butler, Alex Gharibian, David Babikian, Daniel Quinn and Trevor Corning from Belmont, and Eryk Dobrushkin and Dan Cook from Arlington. The B-boat was coxed by Ian Bernardin from Arlington, and rowed by James Tiffany from Arlington, and Dylan Ryan, Adrian Tanner, Liam Cushman, Ryan Sass, Anthony DiFranco, Andrew Giorgio and Rafi Wagner from Belmont. 

The novice girls 8+ boat finished sixth out of 16 boats with a time of 11:40. The all-Arlington crew was coxed by Kayla Murphy and rowed by Bridget Kiejna, Alice Liu, Emma Murach, Tali Gorokhovsky, Susannah Benn, Paige Riley, Annessia Jimenez and Betsey Donham.  The girls finished less than a minute off the lead pace.

The novice boys 4+ boat and the novice girls 4+ boat, both prepared to race, were forced to scratch due to deteriorating weather conditions.

AB Crew will return to action in the spring.

Submitted by Melissa Bernardin and David Wright