The Cooper River in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, hosted this year's Scholastic Rowing Association of American's National Championship.
Merion Mercy had an impressive showing; MMA won the girls' varsity four and placed second in the girls' lightweight eight.
"This is the national championship and schools come from all over the country to compete here and it's what you work for all season," said Merion Mercy athlete Morgan Lamb, who rowed in the winning four.
"There is something different about this regatta, and something special about this course. It's just lights out, every stroke, every race. For us, being a school, it's more difficult because clubs get to pick from different schools. This is a better competition level for us as a high school."
Head coach Mike Brown has been with Merion Mercy for several years and has helped develop the program into a consistently competitive squad with limited resources. This year, Brown's girls have excelled and won at the prestigious Stotesbury Regatta in Philadelphia. And they now have a national championship gold, a silver in the girl's lightweight eight, and they are heading to Great Britain to race at the Henley Women's Regatta and to Sarasota, Florida, for the USRowing Youth Nationals.
This comes on the heels of another stellar performance last weekend. Rowing took home a pair of gold medals in the 91st Stotesbury Cup Regatta. MMA has only won two other golds at Stotes, and both on the same day in 2012–a Freshman 8+ gold and a Varsity 4+ gold. In 2017, we won gold in the V4+ category again, and took home gold in the Lightweight 8+ category for the first time.
Merion Mercy Academy is pleased to announce that Dr. Cara Latham has accepted the position of Music Director, effective August 21, 2017. The responsibilities of MMA's Music Director include teaching music majors, participating in extracurricular work with singing and instrumental groups, and supervising other music teachers.
