Penn A.C.-trained rowers do teachers proud at competition

Penn Athletic Club Rowing Association, known on Boathouse Row as Penn A.C., was victorious without being visible.

At the USRowing Invitational, a junior national championship event held in Cincinnati on Saturday and Sunday, St. Joseph's Prep won the varsity lightweight eight for the third straight year and Monsignor Bonner placed second. Both schools are members of the Catholic League and train at Penn A.C.

"It's our home," Bonner coach Mike Cipollone said. "It's been a big factor for Bonner and Prep over the years. Coming out of the same boathouse, we figured we could dominate the nation. We have a bunch of tough kids, and they have a bunch of tough kids."

The Prep's crew included junior coxswain Ryan Cobb (Medford, Burlington County); seniors Joe Fallon (Marlton, Burlington County) and Dan Coleman (Lansdowne); and juniors Brendan Stallard (Berwyn), Dan Fitzpatrick (Drexel Hill), Mike McDonald (Ambler), Andrew Rice (Medford, Burlington County), Pat Travers (Philadelphia), and Joe Stanzione (Sewell, Gloucester County). Fallon and Coleman are headed to Yale.

Racing for Bonner were junior coxswain Joe Lincke; juniors Pat O'Brien, Blake Schiller, Bobby Pflaumer, Terry Mascitelli, Bob Lake and Kevin Goldschmidt; and sophomores Jim Fullerton and Jim Haelle.

Rowing royalty. Bonner's Mascitelli descends from rowing royalty, but he was the unlikeliest member of the Friars' team.

Mascitelli's maternal grandfather is the late Joe Dougherty, a 1932 and 1936 U.S. Olympian and the captain of the Penn A.C. heavyweight eight that won the 1930 world championship in Belgium. Its time over the 2,000-meter course was 5 minutes, 18 4/5 seconds, an unofficial world record that still stands.

"I take inspiration from him," said Mascitelli, whose sister Kristen was a member of Archbishop Prendergast's varsity eight and will row at Penn State.

Mascitelli had to recover from a broken right leg suffered in an ice hockey game in February. He was a member of the Friars' lightweight four that placed second at the Philadelphia city championships and Stotesbury Cup Regatta, and only recently earned his spot on the lightweight eight.

"It took me awhile to get back," he said. "I worked my way up the ladder."

WYRA's best finish. Every year, the Wilmington Youth Rowing Association (WYRA) seems to take another stroke forward, and this spring was no exception.