Crew Takes First Place in Head of the Ohio Regatta

The Central Catholic 1V Boat during the Head of the Ohio (C) Central Catholic Crew Team/Jay Hammond)

Recently, Central Catholic Crew took first place in the annual Head of the Ohio Regatta, one of the largest regattas on the East Coast. This performance went just as Head Coach Jay Hammond had expected.

Due to the relocation of the Central Catholic boathouse from Millvale (where the regatta was hosted) to Valhalla (or, in plain English, Hazelwood), each boat had to row an additional 25k meters, roughly 15 miles, to the course and back.

The boats arrived at the start of the course around 12:00 PM and the races began at 12:30 PM, which meant the rowers were sitting in the boats with no opportunity to warmup.

Thankfully, the long-distance row beforehand seemed to have been the only warmup that the crews needed. The race featured many different crews with hundreds of rowers from Pittsburgh to Chicago.

The first race of the day was Central’s 1st Varsity boat, referred to by the rowers as the “1V.” The 1V is comprised of Joey Evans, Loch Davis, Galen Hardy, Dillon Maddigan, Brendan Maddigan, Everett Sergeant, Gage Philip, Chris Paluselli, and Teddy Gleason. The 1V placed 1st out of 17 crews.

The 2V, comprised of Louis Bonasso, Henry Phillips, Nick Pachete, Oliver Rivers, Will Palko, John P McGinley, Ethan Vitale, and Jacob Harvey, placed 6th overall, besting all local crews and rival Three Rivers Rowing Association’s top boat.

The 3V, comprised of Seth Tannehill, James Carr, David Medved, Will White, John C McGinley, Shane Clisby, Sterling Rieder, Liam Cohen, and Adam Friday, raced to place 11th overall and 2nd in their race. The 3V beat both Mt. Lebanon’s and North Catholic’s 1Vs.

After completing the race, each boat began the long row back to Central’s boathouse resulting in a roughly 19-mile row in total.

Overall, the Head of the Ohio was an excellent start to the year and a promising sign for the spring season. 2V Coach Nick Fratto puts it best, “It was a good day to be a Viking!”.