For the second straight year, Ridgewood Crew won the DiLucca Family Trophy as the top JV 4x boat at the PSRA City Championships regatta. Pictured here (right to left) the winning boat’s crew: Uhmjoo Han, Michael Shkop, Matt Moomjy, and Graham Richardson. (Credit: Jae Han)
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Philadelphia Pa, racing on one of its favorite race courses, Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Ridgewood Crew put on a dazzling rowing performance this past weekend at the Philadelphia Scholastic Rowing Association City Championships.
With 12 out of the team’s 17 boats making the Sunday finals at the 1,500-meter sprint regatta, Ridgewood rowers ultimately brought home 7 individual medals — good enough for second-place overall among all sculling teams.
This year’s City regatta featured 518 entries from 78 clubs across the mid-Atlantic region. It also serves as a sneak preview for the massively popular Stotesbury Cup Regatta, which features many of the same rowing clubs racing on the same course two weeks later in May.
“This weekend, our team really showed its depth across many different types of boats and experience levels. Last year, we medaled in four events at this regatta, so to improve upon that this year is a sign that our novice and returning rowers are making great strides,” said Ridgewood Crew Head Coach Boris Roque-Alvarez.
After leading the pack in Saturday’s time trials for the Boys JV 4x event, the boat of freshman Graham Richardson and juniors Matt Moomjy, Michael Shkop, and Uhmjoo Han powered through the finish in first place on Sunday afternoon to take home the DiLucca Family Trophy (4:50.93). With the victory, Ridgewood successfully defended its title from 2024, taking home the gold in this race for the second straight year.
The crew from that victorious 2024 boat also raced this past weekend, but moved up to the varsity version of the quad sculling event. Sophomore Tristan Riedel, juniors Sam Scharfenberg and Will Nasr, and senior Lucas Evers brought home silver on Sunday in a hard-fought Boys Varsity 4x final that saw less than eight seconds separate the first and fourth-place teams (4:42.24).
Ridgewood’s second gold medal of the regatta came in the Boys Varsity 2x race on Sunday afternoon. After finishing fifth in this event a year ago, the duo of senior Will Carroll and junior Luciano Saladino left no doubt about who was the top boat this year, cruising to a wire-to-wire victory (5:18.89)! The pair continued their hot streak from the previous weeknd, where they won the same event at the Garden State Scholastic Championships.
Junior Ilaria Cupi, sophomores Tinsley Loonam and Hope Martino, and freshman Zurie Yela claimed the first medal for the Ridgewood girls late on Sunday morning. In the Girls Novice 4x race, they battled down the stretch and ultimately finished just over two seconds behind the winning boat (6:12.60).
Joining the silver medal club were their Girls Varsity 2x teammates, senior Julia Smith and junior Maya Ashwin. The pair, fresh off a second-place finish at the Garden State championships the week before in this event, put on an impressive sprint down the stretch to just surge past the bronze-medal boat by less than two-tenths of a second (6:16.59).
The 11th-grade duo of Daniel Hept and James Ryan came in second in a Boys Lightweight 2x time trial on Saturday that saw the top three times go to the first, second, and third-place New Jersey teams from the Garden State championships a week before. Those familiar rivals faced off in the Sunday finals and all three finished on the podium again, with Hept and Ryan taking home the silver (5:27.52).
In the singles races, Ridgewood saw three of its four rowers make the Sunday finals. Junior Andrii Onizhuk claimed the bronze in the Boys JV 1x race (5:59.78), while senior Gryphon Smith came in fifth in the Varsity 1x event (6:07.05). And making a notable singles racing debut this past weekend was freshman Sam Rizzo, who ultimately finished fifth in the finals of the Boys Novice 1x event (7:21.30).
Other notable City Championships finals performances included Ridgewood’s all-freshman quad of David Pasternak, Kai Bissie, Conner Cinco, and Issac Reynolds, which finished just off the podium in fourth place of the Boys Freshman 4x race (5:47.00). The Boys Novice 4x boat of sophomores Edward Amores and Vicken Ezik and freshmen Matt Bessonov and Alex Evers came in sixth (6:03.74) on Sunday.
Full times and results for Ridgewood Crew for the 2025 PSRA City Championships (https://www.regattacentral.com/regatta/results2?job_id=9549&org_id=0).
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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