A Successful May Break: The 94th Stotesbury Cup

During the weekend leading to May Break, most of Ridley’s experienced rowers travelled down to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to participate in the largest high school regatta in the world. That’s right, the 94th annual Stotesbury Cup Regatta hosted over 900 boats that weekend, with boats coming from schools all over North America.

The event is so large that each competitor can only race in one event, with Ridley representing the Canadian minority present in the regatta. The events took place that Friday and Saturday, with the Schuylkill River, opened for practice rows on Thursday, ensuring that the rowers would be properly prepared for their upcoming races. On Friday, each racing event held its time trials, which would determine the boats eligible to compete in the semifinals, which indicated the steps getting closer to reaching finals.

Luckily for Ridley’s rowing team, many of our boats moved past time trials, qualifying for the semifinals and marking potential for multiple Ridley victories. Despite Ridley’s very successful turnout, qualifying for the semifinals is not as easy as it may seem. All of Ridley’s boats had to compete against a very large number of boats, with our junior women’s 4+ having to compete against 51 additional boats, the largest women’s event in the whole regatta.

Regardless of the very competitive nature of the race, Ridley was still able to come out on top, having six of our boats go on to finals. Eventually, two of our strong boats added a gold medal to their collections, quickly becoming one of Ridley rowing’s proudest moments during the race. One of the most memorable parts of this exciting regatta was seeing the clear school spirit on the grandstands during the final heats; it marked a sense of unity among all members of Ridley’s rowing community while showcasing Ridley’s true sense of pride and spirit to a wider and international audience.

It is very fair to say that the 94th annual Stotesbury Cup regatta was a very fortunate trip for our rowers this year, and it is great to see that all the hard work and dedication continuously given by our rowers has successfully paid off. We hope to see this streak of victories continue in Ridley’s next and last regatta, the Canadian Secondary School Rowing Association’s Regatta (CSSRA), happening in the first weekend of June in Port Dalhousie. We hope that CSSRA is another chance for Ridleians to showcase Ridley’s great school spirit.

Congratulations to the boats who made it to the finals!

1st - Jr. Women’s 2x (Sydney Swick & Jade Postma)

1st - Sr. Men’s 4x (Andrew Schrompf, Caillen Pieckenhagen, Elliot Leal, & Ashton Kidd)

4th – Jr. Men’s 2x (Ethan Postma & Luke Winterbottom)

5th – Lwt. Sr. Women’s 2x (Charlotte Langlois & Naomi Cousins)

5th – Jr. Women’s 4x (Calla Thai, Rachel Mason, Crystal Gao, & Olivia Alexander)

6th – Sr. Men’s 4+ (Victor Kei. Quinn Kraus, Ben Oabel, Shawn Nesbitt, & Aiden MacPhail)