PENNSAUKEN – Ocean City’s girls novice eight took second place and the boys novice four finished in third place on Saturday, April 28 at the Garden State Scholastic Championships at Pennsauken’s Cooper River Park.

In total, four of Ocean City’s boats made it to the regatta’s finals.

The girls senior four – Mariel Salkeld, Ashley Carpenter, Kirsten Kershbaumer, Elizabeth Davis, and Ashley Nardiello – and boys lightweight 8 – Jacob Newsome, Will Graham, Justin Goucher, Jordan Baker, Cory Raab, Tom Klevinsky, Nick Matousch, Joseph Graham and Connor Brady – advanced to the finals of the regatta. That was in addition to the girls novice 8 featuring Brooke Hoffner, Kristen Stuart, Christina Porreca, Laura Blaine, Jessica Mruz, Fiona Devine, Meghan Laverty, Skylar Green and Dana Cates, and the boys novice four with Pat McCarron, Christian McDermott, Michael Daddi, Zac Colao and Alec Helm.

The boys lightweight 8 finished in fourth place and the girls senior four finished in sixth place.

“We’re doing well,” Ocean City boys head coach Mike Millar said. “Right now we’ve had two boats advance to the finals (novice four and lightweight 8) and two boats almost advance, so we’re happy so far.”

Both the novice four and the lightweight 8 won their first heat, and the Raiders have seen a lot of success in the lightweight 8 this season, Millar said. The lightweight 8 has won three races this season and lost two others by less than half a second.

Joseph Graham, a member of Ocean City’s lightweight 8, also received one of the Garden State Scholastic’s college scholarships. Graham received a $750 scholarship and will attend Rutgers University in New Brunswick next fall, where he intends to study either biology or chemistry. “We’re proud of them and we’re proud of everyone,” Millar said. “We’ve been progressively getting faster on the water and on the rowing machine. We’re going to peak at the right time.”

“We did very well today. We had two boats qualify for finals, so we’re happy about that,” Dominick Dougherty, Ocean City girls head coach, said.

“It was really awesome, of the boats in the varsity four race, four were from Atlantic County. Mainland has been the predominant team to beat in that category and Egg Harbor.

We’re looking forward to a really fast Atlantic County Championships in a few weeks. We knew today would be tough, so we were happy to make the final and we’re looking forward to finishing medal season strong.”

Dougherty added that Ocean City’s girls are a young team, with novice rowers outnumbering the returning rowers, but said that the race was a good experience for the novice rowers. He added the rowers are progressing well.

“We’ve got them a lot of good experience and it’s paying off today. They made the finals,” Dougherty said. “We’ve been getting ready for medal races... This is what we train for. I’d say we’re right on pace.”

Ocean City girls also raced a girls junior 8 (Rachael Matousch, Maddie Szabo, Ashlyn Roze, Hayley Williams, Jen Campbell, Michaela Caroccio, Samantha Dallett, Susie Baumgardner and Katherine Delgrande), which finished in fourth place.

The Raiders also raced a boys junior four with Noah Bromhead, Patrick Carr, Tyler Carroll, Chris Barham and Dennis Neville, and a boys senior four with Patrick Grana, Joe DiMarco, John Doerr, Alex Webber and Nick Redmond rowing.

The junior four finished in third place and senior four finished in fourth place by three seats, according to Webber, and nearly qualified for the finals.

Ocean City will compete in the Philadelphia City Championships on Sunday, May 6, on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

The Atlantic County Championships are on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 13.