NCS Wins Silver at Stotesbury

NCS' top varsity boat made history May 19 with its best result ever when the girls eight won the silver medal at the 86th Stotesbury Cup Regatta, the oldest and largest high school rowing event in the world.

Rowing in the final event on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia Saturday, NCS defeated four of the fastest six boats, trailing only the senior women’s eight from Mount St. Joseph Academy, of Flourtown, Pa., which won the event by less than two seconds. James Madison High School, of Vienna, Va., took the bronze.

On Friday, the NCS 1V won time trials, beating 33 high school boats, largely from the Eastern Seaboard.

“The conditions were very good all weekend, the temperature, water and the wind,” said Greg King, NCS Head Crew Coach. King said the results were stunning, considering that the girls’ team is relatively small, consisting of just 30 rowers, eight of whom are novices. “Making the finals was the goal for our team, medaling was the cherry on the top.”

The second-best result for NCS 1V rowers was a bronze medal in 2001. Saturday’s result was the highest any local girls 1V boat has placed since 2002 when T.C. Williams won the gold.

About 300 meters from the finish line, NCS was sitting in fourth place, neck and neck with rivals Madison and Winter Park, Fla., when senior Lindsay Starr, the stroke, asked the senior coxswain, Christianne Molina, to call an early sprint.

“When we heard we were going to start the sprint early, we all buckled down and knew what we had to do,” said Anne Bertram, an NCS sophomore in the sixth seat, who will train with the Junior National Team this summer. “The last five strokes were the most painful thing I have ever done.”

Co-captain Bryce Moshfegh said her “dry mouth and burning muscles paled in comparison to the pride I felt in my team.”

The NCS 1V will soon load the trailer and head to the Camden County Boathouse in New Jersey for the Scholastic Nationals on the Cooper River next Friday and Saturday.

“This is the pinnacle,” Molina said. “We are not holding anything back.”--Judy Holland (mother of Lindsay Starr '12 and Maddie Starr '14)