The Christian Brothers Academy (CBA) crew team competed this weekend at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America (SRAA) National Championship Regatta with the men’s junior varsity 4 boat bringing home a national championship.
CBA sent five crews to the National Championship Regatta at Mercer County Park. All five of the crews – men’s varsity 4, men’s lightweight varsity 4, men’s lightweight varsity 8, men’s junior varsity 4 and men’s freshmen 8, qualified for the national competition four weeks ago at the Garden State Championship Regatta, held in Camden.
Each crew qualified for semifinals Saturday, May 31, which CBA head coach Scott Belford considered a tremendous milestone for the 11-year program.
After winning its heat on Friday and the semifinals on Saturday, Colts’ junior varsity 4 drew one of the top two seeds for the final. In the finals, CBA led by just more than a boat length at the 1000-meter point in the 1,500 meters race and repulsed a strong charge by St. Peters Prep of Jersey City to win by more than 2 seconds. The gold medal performance was an improvement over the third-place finish for the same boat at last year’s SRAA National Regatta.
The men’s lightweight varsity 4 also won its Friday heat and semifinal and drew one of the two top seeds – Belen Jesuit from Miami, Fla. – for the final. The CBA crew finished second by three seconds. Completing its scholastic career, the boat is the most decorated in CBA crew history, having won the Garden State Championship, USRowing Mid-Atlantic Junior District Championship and the Stotesbury Cup Regatta in 2103 and 2014. One of the rowers, Mike Guadagno, was recruited to row lightweight crew at Dartmouth College while Dan Weihs, Sam Henning, and Kevin Hayes also intend to continue collegiate rowing at the University of Virginia, Lehigh University and University of Pennsylvania, respectively.
The men’s varsity 4, which won its heat on Friday and finished second in its semifinal, finished fifth in its race. The members of the boat also have been recruited to continue rowing at the collegiate level with Jack Smallwood going to the University of Pennsylvania; Justin Terek, Drexel; Scott Londregan, Syracuse; and Neil Hughes attending the Kent School prep school.
The men’s freshmen 8 and men’s lightweight varsity 8 each missed advancing to finals, with the freshmen boat finishing fourth and the varsity 8 finished fifth.
The SRAA has conducted the scholastic championship regatta each May since 1935, determining the North American Champions. The regatta included 574 entries from 174 different crew teams representing state champions, runners-up, third place finishers and nonqualifying petitioners from 15 different states, the District of Columbia and the province of Ontario, Canada.
