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Locals with out-of-area teams make impact at Dad Vail

Joe Horn's father remembers the first time Joe brought up the subject of high school. The son, in eighth grade, had gone to Brian Horn and said: "I'm going to Roman." The kid announced it as if it was a done deal.

Florida Tech, including former Roman Catholic's Joe Horn (both arms
raised) celebrate winning the Mens Varsity Hwt. Eight final during the
2015 Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta in Phila. on May 9, 2015.  (Elizabeth Robertson/Staff Photographer)
Florida Tech, including former Roman Catholic's Joe Horn (both arms raised) celebrate winning the Mens Varsity Hwt. Eight final during the 2015 Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta in Phila. on May 9, 2015. (Elizabeth Robertson/Staff Photographer)Read more

Joe Horn's father remembers the first time Joe brought up the subject of high school. The son, in eighth grade, had gone to Brian Horn and said: "I'm going to Roman." The kid announced it as if it was a done deal.

The Horns live in Ridley Park, not exactly around the corner from Broad and Vine. "Roman Catholic?" Brian Horn remembers saying back. "In Philly? . . . In Center City?"

That's how Joe Horn began taking the SEPTA train every morning from Delaware County with the commuters. He wanted to try something different, Joe said Saturday, carrying his boat back from the dock. The summer before freshman year, already committed to Roman, Joe saw the rowing competition at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That struck a chord, he said. Something different.

There's your starting point for how Horn ended up in the 5 seat of Florida Tech's varsity eight Saturday in the Dad Vail Regatta, in a dogfight down the Schuylkill with defending champion Michigan, the Richard O'Brien trophy on the line, grandstands going nuts.

Standing in the row right behind that O'Brien trophy, Horn's mother and sister watched Joe's boat dueling Michigan way up the course. Somebody thought maybe Florida Tech was in front.

"It doesn't matter," Bernadette Horn said, pointing to the finish line right in front of her. "It matters right here."

When Joe first brought up rowing, his father remembers saying to him: "Rowing? There's no rowers in our family."

That's kind of the way the sport works. Somebody stumbles into it, or gets intrigued by it, and then the whole thing often starts to make sense. On Saturday, Massachusetts took the Evelyn Bergman Trophy for top women's varsity eight. That victorious boat had two local women. They both happened into the sport and quickly got entangled.

"A bunch of girls on the team had been on the hunt in the cafeteria, just coming up to random tables: 'Hey, you should row,' " said Nicole Destefano, in the 5 seat of the UMass varsity eight, remembering hearing about it at Conestoga High. "I just signed up as a joke, then somehow I got really into it."

"It was definitely my parents, they pushed me to it. It's all their fault," said Aiste Balciunaite, in the 4 seat of the UMass varsity eight. They pleaded guilty. They are Lithuanian, had moved here for employment reasons while their daughter was in grade school. She was tall, but basketball and volleyball weren't her sports. She took to rowing at Harriton High.

"I just kept going with it," Balciunaite said. "It takes you in, hooks you in."

UMass had a dominant day, also winning the junior-varsity eight and varsity four. Natalie Boisvert, in the varsity four out of Eastern High in Voorhees, said she got started "after I had done ballet for years. I needed something else to do. I had a friend who said, 'You should row because you're tall.' It just worked. I joined a club on the Cooper, the South Jersey Rowing Club."

The local teams get much of the attention at the Dad Vails, but there aren't too many out-of-town schools that show up without a local or two. Florida Tech is a very strong men's program, currently ranked 17th in the country, best of all the boats at the Dad Vails, which put a target on its back.

Of course, locals aren't as interested in the bigger national competitions. What about Dad Vails? Florida Tech had come in a close second in 2014, third the year before. Its last win here was in 1988.

Brian Horn's sister, Stephanie, who strokes the varsity eight at Merion Mercy Academy and will row at Drexel next year, saw Florida Tech a couple of seats back of Michigan coming into sharper focus, then she correctly saw her brother's boat had increased its stroke rate. Her analysis quickly gave way to screaming as the boats approached the grandstands.

Not until they got right in front of that grandstand, yards short of the finish line, was it obvious that Florida Tech had literally inched in front. Its final time over the 2,000 meters was 5 minutes, 37.169 seconds. Michigan finished in 5:37.925.

Standing on the dock after accepting the big trophy, just before his team threw the coxswain in the Schuylkill, Florida Tech coach Joe Granger said of Horn, in one of his power seats: "In all honesty, Joe had come in sort of overlooked by other programs. As we were building this thing up, that was kind of where we were recruiting, guys that were getting passed up by bigger programs. Sometimes they pan out, and sometimes they don't. I think Joe has exceeded all of our expectations. He has turned into a tremendous oarsman."

Only because the kid from Ridley Park liked the idea of getting on a SEPTA train to go to high school. Different turns out pretty good sometimes.