Ridgewood Crew placed four in the top five and six in the top eight of the Men’s Lightweight 2,000 meter race at the 2026 Winter Watt Farm. The team’s first place finisher in the race was senior Luciano Saladino, flanked by the Ridgewood Crew coaching staff. (Photo credit: Maggie Dwyer)
Ridgewood Crew Earns Five Golds
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Lyndhurst, New Jersey – Ridgewood Crew turned its medal-winning power up to 11 on Saturday at the 2026 Winter Watt Farm erg race. This indoor rowing meet, held at Ridgewood’s home boathouse, the Bergen County Rowing Center, and hosted by the Passaic River Rowing Association, featured more than 250 middle school and high school youth rowers from 10 different clubs across New York and New Jersey. For the second year in a row, Ridgewood took home five gold medals at the event, which featured 1,000-meter, 2,000-meter, and two-minute races.
Ridgewood’s five youth victories stood as the most among the field and its mark of 11 overall medals was second highest among all teams.
“Being able to race in our home boathouse always makes this event special,” said Ridgewood Crew head coach Boris Roque-Alvarez. “We’re still early in the winter indoor season, so to have this kind of overall performance, which included numerous personal-best times up and down the team, is very promising.”
Nowhere was Ridgewood’s dominance on Saturday more apparent than in the Men’s Lightweight Youth 2,000 meter race, where the team just missed a podium sweep and put four rowers into the top five and six in the top eight. Leading the charge was a pair of seniors, Luciano Saladino (6:53.9) and James Ryan (6:56.2), who took first and second, respectively. Ryan claimed silver by just .1 second, surging past the third-place rower in the final 250 meters.
Sophomore Isaac Reynolds (7:05.9) came in fourth in that same race, followed just seconds later by senior Daniel Hept (7:07.9) in fifth place, and sophomore George Rivkin in sixth (7:09.0). Junior Gabe Dozortsev rounded out Ridgewood’s top-ten finishers in the event, coming in eighth (7:17.3).
The team also demonstrated its elite performance by posting the fastest men’s and women’s youth times of the day, across all events. Senior Will Nasr set the male standard while notching a personal best and easily winning the Men’s Youth 2,000 race by more than 11 seconds (6:14.8). Even more impressive was Ridgewood’s Jaya Suri, who scored the top overall women’s time despite being a freshman. Suri quickly distanced herself from her fellow competitors in the Women’s Freshman 2,000-meter event, cruising to gold with a margin of victory of 25 seconds (7:35.2). Her time was also more than 17 seconds faster than the winning mark in the varsity Women’s Youth race.
Both Nasr and Suri had company at the top from teammates in their respective races. In the Men’s Youth race, Ridgewood junior Tristan Riedel brought home the bronze (6:31.1) while senior Andrii Onizhuk finished in seventh (6:44.8). In the Women’s Freshman race, Lucia Krauza (8:11.9), Gracie Demarcado (8:21.6), and Courtney Spence (8:34.0) finished fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively.
The day’s top-heavy performances for Ridgewood even extended down to some of the team’s youngest rowers. In the Women’s Middle School 1,000 meter race, two Ridgewood competitors took home some hardware and four finished in the top six. Zoe Rosenbaum (4:04.5) and Mia Velichkova (4:17.3) claimed silver and bronze, respectively, while Chloe Yela (4:20.0) and Lauren Coder (4:26) came in fourth and sixth.
The Men’s Under 17 2,000 meter event saw Ridgewood just miss another multi-podium finish. Sophomore Kai Bissie scored a wire-to-wire victory (6:38.9), while fellow 10th-grade teammate Alex Evers came up just short of a medal, finishing fourth (7:05.9).
In one of the tightest medal races of the day, the second, third, and fourth-place finishers of the Men’s Freshman 2,000 meter race all came within 2.2 seconds of each other. After trading places with the other two rowers for much of the race, Ridgewood freshman Graham Glidden turned it on down the stretch and ultimately claimed the bronze (7:23.6).
In the Women’s Youth 2,000 meter race, senior Maya Ashwin claimed silver (8:10.5), while sophomore Nicole Manevich finished in fifth (8:34.1).
Sophomore Marelia Leou came in first in the Women’s PR1 2,000 meter adaptive race (8:52.8). Competitors in this classification have limited ability to use their legs and trunk and row almost exclusively with their arms and shoulders.
In the Men’s Novice 2,000 meter race, 10th-grader Isaac Rentoul-Gins was Ridgewood’s top finisher, coming in sixth (7:29.6).
Full times and results for Ridgewood Crew at the 2026 Winter Watt Farm can be found at https://regatta.time-team.nl/wwf/2026/results/events.php.
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.
Tell your story #TheRidgewoodblog , #Indpendentnews, #information, #advertise, #guestpost, #affiliatemarketing,#NorthJersey, #NJ , #News, #localnews, #bergencounty, #sponsoredpost, #SponsoredContent, #contentplacement , #linkplacement, Email: [email protected]
