Last weekend, the sail team finished 5th out of 16 teams in the MASSA Mallory Fleet Qualifier Championship, hosted by the Toms River Yacht Club in New Jersey.

Mairead Reitzel and Steven Hardee (Division A) and Gavin Hudson and Lilly Jette (Division B) took on some of the strongest programs on the east coast and, after two days of racing, finished just three points and one place away from earning a berth in the National Championships.

20 races went off on Saturday, 10 each in Divisions A and B, in a shifty southwest breeze and warming temperatures. Reitzel and Hardee earned place finishes of 8th, 3rd, 11th, 13th, 5th, 4th, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, and 2nd in their races as they continued to get sharper throughout the day. Hudson and Jette earned finishes of 9th, 12th, 7th, 4th, 4th, 10th, 14th, 12th, 5th, and 9th as both teams finished with a combined day one score of 139 points to leave them in a three-way tie for 5th with Norfolk Collegiate School and Christchurch School.

Sunday morning arrived with a whispering western breeze that allowed the 11th races in each division to go off along with the 12th race in Division A before evaporating completely, causing the 12th Division B race to be aborted after the start. A two-hour delay and a resetting of the race course allowed just one more race before the 2:00pm cutoff time, as only four races were completed on the day. Reitzel and Hardee finished 2nd and 11th in their two races while Hudson and Jette took 9th and 7th to finish 5th overall with 168 points. Though they finished within arm’s length of a trip to Nationals, the Bears still qualified for the Phebe King Memorial National Invitational held in Annapolis, MD in June.

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Top 10 Results

1.	Severn School (MD)	66
2.	Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS (MD)	136
3.	Donovan Catholic (NJ)	138
4.	Norfolk Collegiate (VA)	165
5.	Stony Brook School (NY)	168
6.	Ranney School (NJ)	177
7.	Christchurch School (VA)	180
7.	Toms River North HS (NJ)	180
9.	Christian Brothers Academy (NJ)	188
10.	Archbishop Spalding (MD)	209

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