As soon as the Spartans realized they had won, Laquinta leaped to her feet in the rocking boat.
"I've waited for years to win this," she said. "All the emotion I've had in my life surged into my legs. I'm so proud of these girls."
It was an especially noteworthy day for the Welsh family. Eileen's uncle, Joe Jr., is the girls' coach at Holy Spirit. His son, Joe III, and nephew (Eileen's brother) Andrew Welsh were members of the boys' varsity eight. Also in that boat were coxswain Rory Roberts, Andrew Simpson, Kyle Fitzgerald, Dave Cooker, Tony Pullella, Jonathan Flynn and Dan Farnoly. The winning time was 4:19.70.
"We're ecstatic," coach Joe Welsh said.
Cooker, Simpson, Fitzgerald and Flynn won their fourth Stotesbury title, the last two in the varsity eight. Thomas Jefferson (Va.) placed second in 4:21.25, and city champion St. Joseph's Prep was third in 4:22.59.
"This is the greatest feeling in the world," Cooker said.
"They believed in themselves," said Spirit boys' coach Tony Stefanski, who noted that he passed along the lessons he learned at Temple under current national team coach Michael Teti and Gavin White.
Although the Prep didn't win the coveted senior eight title, the Hawks earned gold in the freshman eight, lightweight eight and second eight; silver in the junior eight; and bronze in the junior four.
"We had a fabulous day," Prep coach Kit Vallhonrat said. "We wanted to get the [varsity eight]. We have nationals next week, and we hope we do something there."
Roman Catholic won the quad with Jason Faulls, John Quigley, Glen Ochal and Al Monte. That unit, along with first-year coach and 1998 Roman graduate Roger Ross, immediately dedicated the win to recently retired coach Tom Henwood. The Cahillites also won the event in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
"The team did it for him," Ross said.
