The Fenwick Island Beach Patrol — and Sussex County, for that matter — proved that last year’s 4-by-100 relay performance at the National Lifeguard Championships wasn’t a fluke. This year’s competition cemented their position among the elite in the nation.
Coastal Point • RUSLANA LAMBERT
The Fenwick Island Beach Patrol proved themselves at the national championships this year, taking home several medals.
In fact, four of the five top placers in the men’s open 4-by-100 relay race were teams from Sussex County.
The Rehoboth Beach team edged out Fenwick Island for first place by a margin so miniscule that it took a panel of judges 75 minutes to decide the winner.
Ben Gichner ran Fenwick’s final leg of the race and started out about 4 to 5 meters behind both Rehoboth’s and Bethany Beach’s runners, according to fellow runner Matt Lewis. Regardless of the setback, Gichner did what he’d done so many times playing soccer for Indian River High School and soared towards the finish line, past Bethany’s runner and into a neck-and-neck finish with Rehoboth’s Aaron Hemphill.
The finish was recorded on video, and the seven-judge panel analyzed it in the media trailer but couldn’t come to a conclusion because it was too close. They finally viewed it on a big-screen television to get a better view of which body had crossed first.
Eventually, it came down to a vote and they decided, four to three, that Hemphill’s chest crossed first, to unseat Fenwick’s team as national champions in the event.
Fenwick’s team (Randy Vanderhook, Andrew Cordell-Carey, Lewis and Gichner) had hoped to bring home the gold again and repeat as national champions. Even though they came up just short, the fact that a fellow Sussex County team won was a decent consolation prize.
“I was upset that we didn’t win. It was so close,” Lewis said. “But we have so much mutual respect for Rehoboth, and if anyone was going to win, we’re glad that it was them.
“We were happy for them,” he added.
“I asked all the guys what they thought and they were happy,” Fenwick Island Beach Patrol Capt. Tim Ferry said. “They wanted the gold, but they were happy with the decision. They knew how close of a decision it was.”
In addition to Rehoboth’s and Fenwick Island’s first- and second-place finishes, Bethany Beach (Eric Heidenberger, John Marvaso, Michael Marvaso and Nicholas Bakerian) placed third and Dewey Beach (Alex Kukich, Tom Humphrey, Patrick Huffman and Keith Brown) finished fifth. A team from Smith Point, N.Y., finished fourth.
Fenwick’s open women’s 4-by-100 relay team, consisting of Kelly Gonzalez, Maria Muscara, Caitlin Dimondi and Dana McCreary, also placed second, though more by a technicality.
The judges ruled that a runner who had secured one of two flags impeded Gonzalez’s progress on her way to the other flag. Gonzalez fended off a third competitor and came up with the flag, despite the inadvertent hold-up. On the next run, Gonzalez wasn’t able to repeat the success from the previous dash, and the competitor that she’d beat the first time out beat her.
Ferry earned the gold in master’s flags. Vanderhook placed sixth in flags. Kip Huffman filled in as the fourth runner on the fifth-place Dewey Beach 4-by-100 relay team and also placed 16th in open flags.
The results couldn’t have made Ferry happier.
“Their performance solidifies their place as some of the best lifeguards in the country,” he said.