April 1, 2006

PHILADELPHIA - The Saint Joseph's Lightweight Men put together solid performances this past Saturday on the Schuylkill River, but were only able to capture two second place finishes, while racing as a guest in the 40th Lev Brett Cup (held annually between the Penn and Rutgers Lightweights). SJU boated a Varsity Lightweight 8 and a 2nd Varsity Lightweight 8. Rough conditions greeted the competitors as a 15 - 20 mph headwind produced white cap chop on the racecourse.

In the 2nd Varsity Lightweight 8 event, Rutgers got out to an early lead in the first 500 with the Hawks and Penn trailing. In the 2nd 500 meters Rutgers and SJU continued to move out on Penn, with Rutgers maintaining a one-length lead on the Hawks. Despite a strong move in the 3rd 500 SJU could not cut into the Rutgers lead and lost to the Scarlet Knights by 6.3 seconds with Penn following behind. The SJU 2nd Lightweight 8 was a composite boat of three members of the Vlt 4 (Coxswain Stephanie Gehringer, Mike Santoro, and Doug Cleveland) plus 6 freshmen lightweights (Michael Boone, Kevin Burrows, James O'Donahgue, John Schneckenberger, Michael Wingrove, and Jordan Marwin),

The Varsity Lightweight 8 was an even closer race. All three boats got out quickly in the rough conditions and there was no clear leader in the first 500 meters. Coming out of the turn in lane 3 Rutgers managed to take a slight advantage with 1250 meters to go. Approaching the 1000 meter mark Rutgers and Penn had moved out to a _ length lead on the Hawks. Coxswain John Hayes called for a big push in the 3rd 500 and the Hawks moved back on Penn and Rutgers. Approaching the 1500 meter mark SJU had managed to pull even with Rutgers and trailed Penn by only 4 seats. Unfortunately for Rutgers in the last 500meters the rough conditions took a toll and one of their oars got stuck in the water, dropping them behind. Penn managed to pull out 3 seats on SJU in the final 300 meters to best the Hawks by 3.1 seconds.

Members of the Varsity Lightweight 8 included Sean Riley, Joe D'Amato, Devlin Murdock, Adam Stoll, Marl Malott, William West, Stephen Ramsey, Kevin Jacobs, and coxswain John Hayes.

The SJU Vlt 8 will compete in the Knecht Cup on April 8th and 9th at the Cooper River in Camden while the heavyweights travel to Washington D.C. to race in the GW Invitational.