
Ridgewood Crew took home the overall trophy for the best sculling (two oars per rower) team in the state at the 2025 New Jersey Scholastic Rowing Championships at the Cooper River on Saturday. Senior rower Lucas Evers is holding the trophy. (Credit: Maggie Dwyer)
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Pennsauken NJ, Ridgewood Crew dominated the competition at New Jersey’s top scholastic rowing competition on Saturday, winning the title for best overall sculling team in the state. One day later, it added to its overall medal haul for the weekend while competing at the US Rowing-sanctioned Cooper Cup, and, across the two days, brought home eight golds and 14 medals overall.
Both the Garden State Scholastic Championships and the Cooper Cup were held on the same race course, the Cooper River in southern New Jersey. Saturday’s state championship event was limited to New Jersey athletes in ninth through 12th grades, and included 280 entries from 42 high schools rowing in 1,500-meter heats and finals. Sunday’s competition featured a much wider field of youth rowers: 626 boats from 69 rowing clubs based in New Jersey, five other states, as well as Washington, D.C. While the Cooper Cup normally runs 1,500-meter time trials in the morning and then 2,000-meter finals races after lunch, high winds on Sunday afternoon forced race officials to cancel the novice and junior varsity races as well as the finals for the singles and doubles events, and shorten the four and eight-person finals to 1,000 meters.
“Taking home the trophy for the best overall sculling at the Garden State Regatta says a lot about the depth and high caliber of this team.” said Ridgewood Crew Head Coach Boris Roque-Alvarez. “Then, we had to turn around and a day later race in very tough conditions against an even more competitive field, where this team continued its standout performances.”
Notably, of the seven individual golds Ridgewood won on Saturday, three involved the team successfully defending its own state titles from a year ago
In the Mens Senior 2x race, senior Will Carroll and junior Luciano Saladino were once again state champions, eking out a hard-fought victory by half a second over the runner-up boat from St. Benedict’s Prep (5:13.500). Their race was a bit of history repeating itself, since the same pair had also claimed gold in this event in 2024 by besting a boat from St. Benedict’s.
Ridgewood retained its status as reigning state champions in the Mens and Womens Junior 4x events as well, although none of the winning rowers from last year were in this year’s first-place boats. Junior Ilaria Cupi, sophomores Tinsley Loonam and Hope Martino, and freshman Zurie Yela won their junior quad race at Saturday’s state finals (6:14.580), while juniors Matt Moomjy, Michael Shkop, and Uhmjoo Han, along with freshman Graham Richardson easily retained Ridgewood’s junior quad boys title, with a margin of victory of more than 12 seconds (5:00.440).
The all-junior duo of Daniel Hept and James Ryan, won the Mens Lightweight 2x event (5:20.120). Their 11th-grade counterparts, Paul Hallowell and Oliver Ilin-Schneider, continued the team’s winning ways in the doubles races, taking home the gold in the Mens Junior 2x (5:29.180). And sophomore Brendan Finucane and freshman George Rivking completed the team’s streak of two-person boat victories in the Mens Novice 2x (6:02.33).
Doubling up on silver medals in the doubles, Ridgewood’s all-freshman duo of Marelia Leou and Nicole Manevich took second in the Womens Junior 2x (7:06.660), while senior Julia Smith and junior Maya Ashwin were runners-up in the Womens Senior 2x race (6:13.780).
The all-ninth grade quad of David Pasternak, Kai Bissie, Conner Cinco, and Issac Reynolds fell just short of gold in the Mens Freshman 4x, finishing only 1.28 seconds behind the first-place boat (5:12.24). The novice quad of sophomores Edward Amores and Vicken Ezik along with freshmen Matt Bessonov and Samuel Rizzo also took silver in the Mens Novice 4x event (5:36.980).
Ridgewood’s lone bronze medal of the weekend came in Saturday’s Mens Senior 1x race, where junior Andrii Onizhuk took third (6:11.280).
The varsity quad of senior Lucas Evers, juniors Will Nasr and Sam Scharfenberg, and sophomore Tristan Riedel claimed Ridgewood’s final gold medal at Saturday’s state championships, cruising to a 10-second margin of victory in the Mens Senior 4x race (4:43.430).
At Sunday’s shortened Cooper Cup, Ridgewood added two more podium finishes. In the Mens U17 2x race, Pasternak and Bissie were the second-fastest in the time trial and took home the silver (5:53.310). The pair also raced in the U17 4x event that same day.
Also pulling double duty on Sunday was freshman Graham Richardson, who competed in both the Mens U17 1x and Mens U19 4x races. He claimed his second gold medal of the weekend after coming in first in the singles race time trial, outpacing the runner-up by a mere .23 seconds (5:51.780). As part of the same line-up of quad teammates as on Saturday, Richardson, Moomjy, Shkop, and Han placed sixth overall in the A final (3:57.540) on Sunday.
That group of four joined the team’s other, varsity quad of Evers, Nasr, Scharfenberg, and Riedel in the Mens U19 4x A final, marking a rare instance where one team placed two boats into the fastest tier of the same event. This latter, varsity boat ultimately took fourth on Sunday, just missing out on a bronze medal by less than two seconds (3:45.130).
In the program’s 20-year history, Ridgewood Crew rowers have 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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