The all-senior Ridgewood crew of Luciano Saladino and James Ryan capped an undefeated lightweight rowing season by taking home the James R. Barker Jr. Trophy at the 2026 Stotesbury Cup after trouncing the competition in the Boys Lightweight Senior Double event. (Credit: Denise Ryan)
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Ridgewood Crew won more medals than any other sculling team and took home two championship trophies this past weekend at the 2026 Stotesbury Cup Regatta, finishing off an outstanding spring rowing season that saw the team set several new program records.
Held each May on a straight, 1,500-meter course down the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, the Stotesbury Cup, now in its 99th year, is the nation’s largest high school scholastic rowing event. This year’s Stotesbury featured nearly 4,000 rowers, 800 boats, and 160 clubs from eight U.S. states, D.C., and one Canadian province. Ridgewood topped all teams with 14 entries across single, double, and four-rower crews and, after time trials and semi-finals, had qualified an impressive 10 boats for the finals on Saturday afternoon.
Ridgewood methodically capitalized on those finals opportunities, seizing victory in two races, claiming bronze medals in three more, and amassing nine top five finishes in total. In a year when less than one third of all teams enjoyed even a single podium finish, the team’s five-medal haul was first among sculling teams and second overall at the regatta.
“The competition we face here at Stotes is some of the toughest in the country, then add to that the Canadian schools who send down their best crews as well,” said Ridgewood Crew Head Coach Boris Roque-Alvarez. “Today, we saw numerous rowers have breakout performances. Even reaching the finals in a field as deep as this is a great achievement and says a lot about the grit and dedication of this team as well as the future of our program.”
Ridgewood started off Saturday afternoon’s racing with two quick statement victories.
In the very first event of the finals, the team took home the Isabel Bohn Trophy in the Girls Inclusive Double event, a new category for 2026 where at least one member of an all-female doubles sculling boat must have a para classification. For Ridgewood, sophomore Marelia Leou paired with Gracie Demercado to take home the gold (9:01.94).
The team’s most dominant victory of the day came less than an hour later. The all-senior duo of Luciano Saladino and James Ryan had previously sailed through the regatta’s time trials and semi-finals, with their closest competition never coming within 10-plus seconds of them at the finish line. And the story didn’t change in the finals, as the pair walked away with a wire-to-wire victory, dispatching the runner-up boat by a more than 12 second margin of victory (6:11.45).
This win capped an undefeated regular season in lightweight racing for Saladino and Ryan, and makes them a strong contender to win this event at the 2026 Scholastic National Championships next week in Tennessee.
Some of the team’s gutsiest performances on Saturday didn’t result in a gold medal, but stood out nonetheless.
After coming in sixth out of 20 boats in their Friday time trial, the Ridgewood 4x boat of Graham Glidden, Lincoln Boudreau, Marko Granzan, and Jun Lee set their sights on the semi-finals, where they managed a third-place finish, just good enough to move on to Saturday afternoon. Then, in the Boys Freshman Quad final, the crew had to race out of a far outside lane, which had proven unlucky for most teams on Saturday, as it left boats more exposed to the steady head wind that plagued the entire day’s racing.
Despite all this, the all-9th grade crew showed its pluck and perseverance, fighting through the conditions and surging down the stretch to eke out a gutsy third-place finish by just .41 seconds over the fourth-place boat (6:07.06).
A similar story unfolded in the Boys Junior Double event. Juniors Atticus Smith and Gabe Dozortsev placed a respectable 11th out of 36 boats in the time trial, but were still a full 25 seconds off the top boat. Nevertheless, they fought their way to second place in one of the three semi-finals to earn a berth in the final, and then found another gear on Saturday afternoon, just missing the podium and coming in fourth overall (6:10.17).
The Girls Junior Quad of sophomores Zurie Yela and Nicole Manevich, and freshmen Courtney Spence and Gracie Demercado likewise rowed their way out of a crowded field, which featured 19 boats, to ultimately come in fourth in their final (6:46.91).
Also sitting right on the bubble after the time trial was the Boys Lightweight Senior Four boat of seniors Paul Hallowell and Daniel Kelly, and sophomores Isaac Reynolds, Alex Evers, and Sam Rizzo (cox). But they too claimed the last finals qualifying spot by coming in third in the semis, but then fell just a few seconds short of the podium on Saturday afternoon with a hard-fought fourth-place finish (5:37.39).
The only other girls medal won by Ridgewood at Stotes came in the Senior Singles event. There, freshman Jaya Suri faced off against 23 other competitors in the time trial, all of whom were at least a year older, and still put up a blistering time that ranked her second going into Saturday afternoon. In the final, she again demonstrated her phenomenal potential by coming in third in a final where she was the youngest rower by two years (7:20.27).
Racing in the marquee sculling event of the regatta, the Boys Senior Quad, Ridgewood showed why it is among the top programs in this discipline in the country. Senior Will Nasr, junior Tristan Riedel, and sophomores Graham and Wesley Richardson pulled the second-fastest mark in the time trial and then claimed the bronze in the final, having only been outraced on Saturday afternoon by the reigning Canadian and US scholastic national championships boats, respectively (5:19.91).
Other Ridgewood boats that reached the Stotesbury finals included the Girls Senior Double crew of senior Maya Ashwin and freshman Lucia Krauza, which came in fifth (7:09.04) and their counterparts in the Boys Senior Double event, where the all-senior duo of Matt Moomjy and Michael Shkop took sixth (6:19.03).
Full times and results for Ridgewood Crew at the 2026 Stotesbury Cup (https://www.regattacentral.com/regatta/results2?job_id=9866&org_id=0).
In the program’s 20-plus years, Ridgewood Crew has competed and excelled in both national and international competitions and its athletes have attracted interest from top rowing colleges and universities around the country. Ridgewood Crew offers several ways for you to experience our mission: join the team, volunteer, or donate. Student athlete programs begin with Learn-To-Row for middle schoolers. For more information contact Ridgewood Crew at http://www.ridgewoodcrew.com.
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