At the 2026 City Championships in Philadelphia, members of the Ridgewood Crew team pose at the end of a long Sunday of racing with their medals, their trophies, and their parents. (Credit: Boris Roque Alvarez)
Ridgewood’s 16 entries was the second-highest number at the regatta and its eight total medals earned tied two others teams for the most overall
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Two freshmen and a pair of seniors led the way for the Ridgewood Crew this past weekend at the Philadelphia Scholastic Rowing Association’s 2026 City Championships, winning three races while the team claimed eight podium finishes in total.
At the two-day City regatta on the Schuylkill River, high school scholastic teams compete in 1,500-meter time trials on Saturday to qualify for finals races over the same distance on Sunday. This year’s competition included 468 boats from 74 schools from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Ridgewood’s 16 entries was the second-highest number at the regatta and its eight total medals earned tied two others teams for the most overall.
“This regatta is always a turning point in our spring season,” said Ridgewood Crew Head Coach Boris Roque-Alvarez. “It’s our first big scholastic event where we get to measure up against other schools outside New Jersey, and it also gives us a good preview of the competition we’ll face at the all-important Stotesbury Cup in two weeks.
“For us to win three races and get onto the podium in five others shows that the team is really performing well,” he added. “It was also encouraging to see that those victories came from both experienced seniors and promising freshmen.”
Ridgewood’s first of those gold medals on Sunday came in the Boys Gig/Novice 1x race. After winning the Saturday time trial by less than one second, freshman Graham Glidden left no doubt about his speed in the final, winning by more than two boat lengths over the runner-up (6:15.67).
Freshman Jaya Suri delivered an even more commanding performance in the Girls Varsity 1x event, facing off against much older and more experienced competition. Despite this disparity, she took first in the Saturday time trial by a stunning 23 seconds and reprised that dominating win in Sunday’s final, beating the second place boat by more than 15 seconds to take home the annual Carol Ann Cup Trophy (6:18.40).
The Boys Lightweight 2x race provided the final addition to Ridgewood’s gold medal tally. The 12th-grader duo of Luciano Saladino and James Ryan set the standard in the event’s time trial, outclassing the next closest boat by 11-plus seconds, and then briskly took care of business on Sunday, winning by more than 10 seconds to take home the annual Henry Ladenburger II Trophy. One year ago, Saladino also took gold at this regatta, but in the Boys Varsity 2x race.
But if Ridgewood’s wins on Sunday consistently had little finish line drama, its other finals races were almost all nail-biters.
By far the closest margin on the day for a medal came in the Girls JV 4x race, where the Ridgewood quad of freshmen Courtney Spence and Gracie Demercado and sophomores Nicole Manevich and Zurie Yela eked out a bronze medal by a mere .03 seconds over the fourth-place boat — literally less than the blink of an eye (5:53.04).
In the boys version of this race, Ridgewood also squeaked ahead of the competition in a photo finish. In a Sunday final where less than a second separated second through fourth place, the Ridgewood Boys JV 4x boat of junior Brendan Finucane and sophomores David Pasternak, George Rivkin, and Kai Bissie edged the third-place boat by just .16 seconds to take home the silver (4:54.63).
Seniors Michael Shkop and Matt Moomjy, sitting tied for third place with 500 meters to go in Sunday’s Boys Varsity 2x final, put on a furious charge to ultimately take second, outsprinting the bronze medal-winning boat by just over a second (5:30.95).
The Boys Varsity 1x race likewise provided an exciting home stretch, as Ridgewood senior Uhmjoo Han, racing out of lane 1, charged up into medal contention in the final 500 meters and finished two seconds short of the runner-up, taking the bronze (5:49.02).
Fellow Ridgewood senior Andriy Onizhuk was also in the Boys Varsity 1x final and came in fifth (5:58.77)
But not every close race went Ridgewood’s way on Sunday.
The Boys Lightweight 4+ boat of seniors Paul Hallowell and Daniel Hept, along with sophomores Isaac Reynolds, Alex Evers, and coxswain Sam Rizzo, had come in fourth in their Saturday time trial, more than seven seconds behind the third-place qualifier. Their Sunday final was a very different race, however, as this crew dug deep and sprinted hard as the finish line loomed, but ultimately they came up a half-second short of the podium, ending up in fourth (5:18.62).
A similar fate befell the Girls Varsity 2x crew of senior Maya Ashwin and freshman Lucia Krauza. After overcoming a somewhat chaotic time trial process to qualify for Sunday’s final, the pair were reeling in the third-place boat at the finish but ran out of race course before they could pass it, leaving them in fourth place (6:07.49).
The Boys Freshman 4x quad of Lincoln Boudreau, Marko Granzan, Anderson Cho, and Jun Lee, which qualified for Scholastic Nationals one week earlier, also finished in fourth this week (5:48.29).
Ridgewood’s final race of the day, crewed by sophomores Graham and Wesley Richardson, junior Tristan Riedel, and senior Will Nasr came in the Boys Varsity 4x event. For the second year in a row, the team took home a silver medal (4:54.98). Notably, this was Nasr’s fourth consecutive year medaling at this regatta, having won gold in the Freshman 4x and JV 4x in 2023 and 2024, respectively, as well as being on last year’s Varsity 4x runner-up boat along with Riedel.
Full times and results for Ridgewood Crew for the 2026 PSRA City Championships https://www.regattacentral.com/regatta/results2?job_id=10201&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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