PC Crew Wins Big at City Champs

Penn Charter rowers put in a formidable performance at the Philadelphia City Championships last weekend, taking home three gold medals and one title plaque. 

In a Covid-friendly, modified competition format on Saturday, freshman and novice events were limited to a single round of races, called flights. Rather than advancing to a championship round, the top boat in each flight was awarded medals, and the fastest time across all flights was recognized with a title plaque for each event.

The Quakers' first medal came early in the day when Eli Moulton, James Foley, Jack Bowen and Mac Haines won their flight in the freshman boys' quad class, finishing a tight race two seconds ahead of Haverford and placing third overall.

Next, the girls' novice quad of sophomores Merrill Gadsden, Charlotte Baker, Lindsay Gadsden, and Ella Bretschneider won gold in their flight and finished second in their class.

A standout race by the boys' novice quad boat–with sophomores Scott Sweeney, James Glomb, Matthew Clarke and Harrison Signorello–resulted in a third gold medal and the Quakers' single title plaque of the weekend. The foursome won their flight by a commanding 27-second margin and outpaced the second-place finishers in their class by 10 seconds.

Lauren Montgomery and Grace Agosto rounded out the Quakers' performance on Saturday with a third-place finish in their freshman girls' doubles flight.

In varsity and JV races on Sunday, junior Bella Salvi finished fourth in time trials and advanced to the finals, where she finished fifth overall. Sunday's race marked Salvi's first time competing in singles since the 2019 season. Strong rowing by the boys' JV quad (Tyler Mangan, Jakob Lanfranco, Duncan Riley, Billy Kopf) and boys' varsity quad (Taylor Whitehead, Kees Lynch, James Tanner, Isaiah Woods-Kolsky) left both boats just seconds shy of qualifying for finals. Varsity rowers Taylor Lokoff and Amanda Cowhey finished out the day for the Quakers, putting it all out there in their doubles time trial.