finishes seventh
in team competition
Long Branch squad
finishes seventh
in team competition
By chris kelly
Staff Writer
CHRIS KELLY Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park’s Drew Edson steers his paddleboard through the surf at the Belmar Invitational lifeguard tournament on Monday.
With an influx of fresh faces to go with a core of veteran competitors, the lifeguards from Long Branch’s Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park started off slow at the Belmar Invitational on Monday.
But by the end of the day, after all the team members had gotten their feet wet, they began to compete with the best the tournament had to offer, finishing seventh in the team standings.
The Seven Presidents team began its day by bowing out of the mile row and then placing sixth in the torpedo relay.
In this land race, eight competitors sprint 100 yards over the soft, dry sand, handing off a safety can.
With points awarded to only the first five finishers, Seven Presidents earned its first points of the day in the kayak relay, breaking into the top three.
Ted Olson and Steve Truxal teamed up to finish behind Belmar and Spring Lake.
Next up for the team from Long Branch was the boat pick-up race.
Mike Fowler stood up in the stern of the boat, rowing out to a preset buoy to pick up Miguel Mejia.
Mejia then rowed seated in the bow, with the two racing back to shore for the finish line.
Seven Presidents finished sixth, as they would eventually do in the paddleboard relay, torpedo swim relay and the boat relay.
Dave Bauer, Michelle Kantor and Drew Edson were the team for the long board race, while Evan Carhart, Regina Kamenel, Hugh Chambrovich and J.C. Rodenberg competed in the four-leg swimming race.
In the boat relay, six two-person teams rowed out around a preset buoy and back to the beach.
The hazards of this race quickly became apparent.
One rower sits and the other stands, and the exchange of the boat takes place in the wash of the breaking surf.
Even though Seven Presidents only placed sixth in this relay event, it was still a strong showing as the team went up against some of the better rowing teams from the Jersey Shore.
For the boat in-and-out race, Seven Presidents was the only team to put two female guards in the boat. Except for Ocean Grove, all the other beaches were represented by all-male crews.
Kelly Gibson and Gina Laugelli, both 22 and from Long Branch, quickly raced through the course, trailing the leaders by about a minute.
In the final event, Seven Presidents presented two newcomers to its competitive team.
Brian Fish and Steve McGarry may have finished seventh in the line-pull race, but they got their first taste of what it’s like to compete against some of the top lifeguards in the area.