How Sweep It Is: Avalon Men’s and Women’s Teams Both Win the South Jersey Lifeguard Championships

The Avalon Beach Patrol celebrates Avalon’s 10th South Jersey team championship on Aug. 12 in Brigantine.

It was a dream season, perhaps the ultimate season.

The Avalon Beach Patrol sports the rare distinction of not one but two South Jersey Lifeguard Championships in a single year. Its men’s and women’s teams toppled 14 rival patrols ranging from Brigantine to Cape May, notching the equivalent of two Super Bowl titles in one week. Or a Super Bowl and a World Series.

Few patrols have ever accomplished this double. It’s widely acknowledged that the Ventnor Beach Patrol likely achieved this sweep a couple of decades back, well before the women’s circuit emerged in 2016, according to available records.

If beach patrols mirrored the celebration of other sports, this would merit a parade down Dune Drive. Someone would get a key to the city.

As it was, Avalon did gain a police escort back through town on Aug. 12, the night it captured the men’s title by one point over host Brigantine. One day later, patrol members stopped at each stand, taking pictures with the guards and the public.

Ryan Finnegan celebrates his first-place finish in the singles competition at the South Jersey Championships. Finnegan took the victory by less than two seconds.

Avalon Beach Patrol chief Matt Wolf may well regard this as a season for the ages. Avalon captured eight major events from early July to mid-August. It beat stellar opponents, time after time. Avalon won its 10th team title, the first since 2015 on the men’s side, and the right to host the 2025 South Jerseys.

A week earlier, the patrol’s first-ever South Jerseys women’s crown was won in the Ventnor-based Howarth Invitational, capping a sweep of the Ocean City, Longport, and the Howarth races, the unofficial Big Three of the women’s circuit. Avalon even seized the indoor pool championship in Ocean City, completing a grand slam of major events.

“I couldn’t be more proud of what our beach patrol has become,” Wolf says. “We hold ourselves to a higher standard in everything we do. Everybody on our patrol can lifeguard. Everybody can swim. Everybody can row. Everybody takes their job seriously.

“On the afternoon of the South Jerseys, the guys who would row for us that evening were running up to the boardwalk, helping with a medical emergency. Our competitors are lifeguards first. We love guarding the people. We love representing the town.”

And that’s exactly what they did.

Pinch yourself, Avalon lifeguard racing fans. It doesn’t get better than this.

Amid the presence of talented South Jersey beach patrols, all sporting college athletes and elite performers from Brigantine to Cape May, the best of the best resides at 32nd Street and the beach, right here.

What a ride.

Here’s a look at Avalon’s men’s and women’s 2024 championship teams.

HOW THE WOMEN DID IT

Sisters Regan McDonnell (bow) and Molly McDonnell (stern) on their way to victory at the row/swim race of the Ocean City Invitational.

Avalon carried its women champions victoriously off the beach several times this summer. The celebrations unfolded after races in Longport, Ocean City, and Ventnor, where the Howarth Invitational is considered the marquee womens lifeguard racing event of the year.

Avalon thus captured what’s viewed as the women’s South Jerseys title.

But months before that happened, a foundation was set in the Avalon waters in the early-morning hours.

Chief Matt Wolf instituted a policy shift this year, continuing a widespread improvement trend by women on the patrol. It sprouted wings.

“When I was younger, the patrol did row-offs every night for two weeks in the summer,” Wolf recalls. “With the schedule changing and there being so many races, we did not have time to do the row-offs at night.

“So, we did them in the morning. It’s a round-robin style tournament for the women. They came in early to do it, and to their credit they bought into it. It was mandatory for them to compete.”

Not only was Avalon consistently excellent, but it saved some panache for the finale. Sisters Regan and Molly McDonnell capped the season with their doubles victory at the Howarth.

Regan, 23, was part of the Stanford team that just won a national championship. Four team members qualified for the Olympics. Two authored fourth-place finishes at the Games.

Top right: 2024 Ocean City Women’s Invitational champions: Standing, from left: Maggie Murphy, Molly McDonnell, Becca Cubbler, Katie Scanlon, Maddie Hippensteal, Sarah Powell. Sitting, from left: Regan McDonnell, Alyssa Sittineri, Mackenna Finnegan.

Molly, 19, is a rising sophomore on the Georgetown rowing team. Being four years apart, the sisters rarely rowed together. But this summer they did, and came up big.

And nothing was bigger than the wave they rode to victory.

Late in a tight race, Regan instructed Molly, in the stern, to jump backward in the boat. That altered the weight distribution of the boat and helped align it with the championship wave. Avalon rode perhaps the ocean equivalent of a 50-mph tailwind right into the winner’s circle.

“It’s helpful to be sisters and close like we are,” Regan notes. “We can be honest with each other and not worry so much about whether something you say might hurt the other person’s feelings. In the heat of the moment, we can both shout out what we want to do.

“We kept telling each other during the second half that ‘We’ve got this.’ The ending was magic, it was epic.”

“We practiced that last move all summer,” Molly says. “We tried it the week before and it didn’t go too well. But things went our way when we needed it. It’s the first wave we’ve successfully ridden,” she adds with a laugh.

Molly believes that Wolf’s new practice measures put them in the water often enough to relieve stress during competition.

Wolf credits his captain, Ryan Black, with helping to recruit the McDonnell sisters from the Haddonfield area, where he teaches.

It also helped the ABP that guard John McDonnell helped coax his sisters onto the patrol. The McDonnell guards and their mother rent a summer home in Stone Harbor.

Becca Cubbler, meanwhile, parlayed a cold, hard decision into gold for the Howarth swim.

Becca Cubbler emerges from the surf in the women’s swim.

Unlike most of the field, she chose not to wear a wetsuit to combat the 54-degree ocean temperature. That proved significant as she was lighter, gliding through the choppy waters through the homestretch.

“I knew what my body could take, so not having the wetsuit really helped me,” she recalls. “I had the lead at the flag and when I saw the others wearing the wetsuit, I knew that was good for me. I understand why you’d wear them, to keep you warmer in the ocean, but I felt I could get through it.”

And when she did, there was a welcome unlike any other.

Cubbler has sterling credentials. She was a six-time All-American, winning the honor two straight years in three events: the 500-yard, 1,000-yard, and 1-mile swimming events for Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania for 2019 and 2020.

She provided recent accomplishments by winning the U.S. Masters Swimming Spring Nationals in Indianapolis in late June. Her accomplishments in the pool are impeccable.

Cubbler added another dimension this year. She triumphed in the ocean and was carried off by exuberant teammates after the major races.

“I have gotten hugs and high-fives, but nobody ever did this,” she says, grinning. “I felt excited by this because all summer long we have been lining ourselves up against other patrols and thinking we could do well. I figured I could get at least first or second in this big race.”

Ultimately, it mattered that she was first rather than second. Besides the McDonnell sisters and Cubbler, Avalon notched a key point with a fifth place in the surf dash. Caroline Gallagher, Molly McDonnell, Mackenna Finnegan, and Maddy Hippensteal brought home the 11th team point.

That set up the doubles victory by the McDonnell sisters as the event tiebreak.

“This team title meant the world to all of us,” Cubbler says. “We have been eyeing this up for years and these races were mentioned every week in roll call this season.

“We’ve had high hopes. We knew we had put in all the hard work and we felt we could take these trophies,” she adds. “We’ve had some amazing girls on the patrol before I was even here, but we could never get that team championship.

“What we accomplished is for every woman on the patrol who came before us and will come after us.”

HOW THE MEN DID IT

P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E.

Alex Zoldan, Gary Nagle, Ryan Finnegan and David Giulian celebrate Avalon’s South Jersey victory.

The Avalon Beach Patrol men’s team felt the heat of a magical campaign when entering the South Jerseys lifeguard-racing championship in Brigantine.

One week earlier, the Avalon women had notched their South Jerseys title by claiming the Howarth Invitational, viewed as the female equivalent, in Ventnor.

Amid this glare, the men came through, claiming the patrol’s first overall title since 2015. That gave Avalon the rarest of rare jewels, two South Jerseys titles in one season.

The men took the Cape May County event, the Kerr Memorials that it hosts, the Dutch Hoffmans, and the South Jerseys.

“After the Howarth, we knew there was a chance to do something historic,” Avalon chief Matt Wolf says of the male-female championship sweep. “There was pressure on the men to get it done, even more so than past years.

“I am so proud of them for many reasons. It’s not a trophy, or the T-shirt, even money that matters when you capture a championship. It’s who you become in the process of going through that.”

The magic of this campaign resonates on many levels.

Start with Wolf. The son of Avalon BP legend Murray Wolf has carved an exceptional path in his four-year realm. He has excelled as an instructor and social-media force and now enjoys a rare perch.

He was part of Avalon’s last South Jerseys championship in 2015, capturing third in the riding doubles (with Jake Enright). Wolf has the rare distinction of winning the South Jerseys as a performer and a coach. As far as records can determine, it is believed no other top current beach patrol executive sports that double honor.

Championship hardware from the South Jersey Championships (from left) Alex Zoldan, Gary Nagle, David Giulian, Ryan Finnegan, and Chief Matt Wolf.

Wolf has continued the winning tradition he launched as the Middle Township High School wrestling coach. He also recruited stars like David Giulian, who teamed with Gary Nagle to give Avalon a strong fourth-place finish in the South Jerseys doubles.

Giulian, who learned his craft under Wolf, improves solidly every year.

Giulian and Nagle were solid from end to end in the South Jerseys, just missing second before settling for fourth in the doubles row.

“I know we put the work in and although we would have loved to be South Jersey champs, we were very happy to get some points,” Giulian indicates. “Our sights are high. We always feel that if you are not first, you are last. We knew we needed to do well in all three events (singles row, doubles row, swim) to win this.

“This is awesome now. When I walk into the beach house, I see the pictures of those guys on the wall who won major championships for us in the past. It’s kind of crazy to think I will be up there now, along with my teammates.”

Nagle, enjoying his ninth year on the patrol, is delighted he will see Avalon host the 2025 South Jerseys. He was a rookie when Avalon hosted the 2016 version by virtue of winning in 2015. Nagle was the captain of the Ursinus University wrestling team in Pennsylvania, Wolf’s alma mater, and has joined him as a Middle Township High School wrestling coach.

Alex Zoldan, a rookie, came up with the race of his life to gather a critical second in the swim. It completed a campaign in which he improved, race by race.

“He absolutely killed it,” Wolf indicates. “That was the best race Alex had all season and he gave it to us when we really needed it.

Finnegan, meanwhile, has been an inspirational story.

Now in his seventh year, he finally broke through to represent the patrol in out-of-town competition last year. Finnegan juggled early-morning workouts and day-long shifts here with the landscaping business he owns in the Haddon Heights area. It was grueling, but he has pulled it off.

Slowly, he gained momentum on this patrol.

There were five years of knocking on the door before he finally broke through. He finished a non-scoring sixth in the South Jerseys last year but went all the way to the front this season.

Finnegan’s heart-pumping singles triumph gave Avalon its tie-breaking points to win the team championship.

Avalon’s Finnegan emerges from the fog to capture the singles championship at the Cape May County Championships in July.

Two techniques in his championship race were revealing. One was the brilliant oar drag that completed his ultra-tight turn at the flag, placing him several seconds ahead of his competitors. The second was the wave he rode in at the end to decide it.

Finnegan notched Avalon’s 10th singles title dating back to its first, won by Fran Sutter (now a noted heart surgeon in PA) in 1974.

How different than when he first started.

“Nobody knows how to row for a beach patrol when they first start,” he says. “On my first day, I lost my oars in the water and flooded the boat. But I loved it so much that it was something I just kept at.

“It was tough to get to a position of representing the patrol out of town because we are so deep. The feeling here is that if you beat people in town, you will beat others when you go out of town because these competitions are so tough. In Avalon, everybody rows.”

Finnegan’s wake, so to speak, completed one final bit of sweet irony.

Avalon prevailed in Brigantine, where it had captured the 1980 championship. That was also the race that sparked the legend of Dave Kerr, for whom the Kerr Memorials honor every year.

All the pieces fit together for this year.

From many vantage points, it could not have been more perfect.