Photos by Lisa
Hansen. Christian
Brother Academy’s
Lightweight
Crew Team won
the prestigious
Stotesbury Cup held
on the Schuykill River
this season.
CBA Lightweight Crew Team Comes from
Behind to Earn Stotesbury Cup Crown
30 JULY 2021 | TheJournalNJ.com
BY TIM MORRIS
Christian Brothers Academy’s lightweight crew team (150 pounds and
under) found themselves in an unfamiliar position at the Stotesbury
Cup: trailing. After dominating high school regattas throughout the
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ter race, held on the Schuykill River in Philadelphia. They were behind the
team from Wilson High in the District of Columbia. The Stotesbury Cup is
the biggest high school regatta in the country.
“It was terribly windy, and we were rowing into a headwind,” rower
Joe DiBernardo recalled. “We were down off the start through 500 meters.
At 800, we made our move.”
Once the Colts pulled even with Wilson, they were leaven.
“The last 500 meters are the most important part of the race,” noted
DiBernardo, a junior.
Dylan Wade remarked that the Colts were not going to be denied
in the biggest race of the year. They were going to dig deep and put
everything they have into holding off their challenger.
“The last couple hundred meters, we started rowing harder. We
were not going to let anyone pass us,” the senior rower explained.
The Colts didn’t slow down and ended up beating Wilson to the
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The Colts’ lightweight crew consisted of DiBernardo, Wade, James
Murrer, Matt Welch and coxswain Grant Dorsi.
Wade credited the Colts’ coxswain (the steersman) with keeping
the team from panicking.
“It was his (Dorsi’s) attitude in the middle of the race,” said Wade.
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come back.”
The Colts added another chapter to the program’s storied tradition
that dates back to 2004.
“We put our mark on the tradition. We passed it on,” said Wade.
DiBernardo, Wade, Murrer, Welch and Dorsi have been a team for
most of the spring. That helped them develop chemistry which is so important
in what is a true team sport.
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It takes everyone working together for a crew team to succeed.
Hours of work together are needed for a team to reach that sync, and
the crew team works as hard as any other athletic squad. The rowers
have 30-minute workouts at 6 am before school, and after school it’s off
to the Shrewsbury River for workouts on the water that can range from
500-meter intervals to mile-long rows. During the winter, the rowers
can do up to 10,000 meter pulls on the rowing machine.
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reward for all the hard work put into the sport.
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