What a Team! Avalon Beach Patrol Repeats as South Jersey Champs Shortly After Rescue
The 2025 Avalon Beach Patrol celebrates their victory on the 35th Street Beach.
By Dave Bontempo
Pinch yourself, Avalon Beach Patrol lifeguard racing fans.
For the first time since 1992, Avalon boasts repeat South Jersey Lifeguard Championships. That’s back-to-back victories over 14 strong rival patrols guarding the beaches from Brigantine to Cape May Point. Back-to-back triumphs over perennial powerhouses like Margate, Atlantic City, Ventnor, and Longport, which once tabbed five straight championships.
The 2025 South Jerseys ended like this on Monday, Aug. 11 at Avalon’s 35th Street beach: David Giulian and Gary Nagle delivered an important second-place finish in the doubles row, followed by Dolan Grisbaum’s comeback victory in the swim and Ryan Finnegan’s tenacity to earn third after a rough start in the singles row.
Avalon prevailed with 12 team points, three more than Margate. Scoring was 5-4-3-2-1 from first through fifth. Avalon delivered a first, second and third, winning on its depth and ability to place high in every category.
On the women’s side five days earlier in Ventnor, Becca Cubbler unfurled a dominant victory to become the first-ever women’s South Jersey swimming champion. Avalon gained a rare double with Cubbler and Grisbaum producing swim titles.
What a season.
Two team crowns in a row. That’s like two consecutive Super Bowls. Most of the Avalon stalwarts will probably come back next year. It’s easy to think of this team as a potential dynasty.
But Chief Matt Wolf, in his fifth year at the helm, focused on something else one day after the triumph.
“I told everybody this morning that when I took over as chief, I hung a sign up that said ‘Higher Standard,’” Wolf was saying Tuesday. “We hold ourselves and each other to that. We strive to be the very best at everything we do, and that starts with protecting the beaches. The race just becomes the outcome of everything else we do.”
Wolf was even more proud of his competitors for what happened just BEFORE the South Jerseys.
In midafternoon the day of the championships, a rescue was required on 15th Street. Some kids had been pulled into a riptide and been carried out a distance. Guards from every nearby stand were deployed.
From all sides, guards sprinted to the nearest stand, relieving those who could then run to a stand closer to the rescue. The relay-race effect provided coverage on each stand and frees guards to help with the rescue effort.
“All four of our competitors [Monday] night were involved in the rescue,” Wolf recalls. “The last thing you might expect is Dolan Grisbaum to be sprinting a half-mile on the afternoon he is going to swim for the South Jerseys title, or that Finnegan is going to be the first one on the scene, but that’s what this job requires. I’m proud of everybody who works for us. They are lifeguards FIRST.”
Wolf said the rescue effort was successful. And then it was down to the business of defending the South Jerseys title.
Nagle, Giulian Deliver Early Points
Riding a midnight-blue boat, Nagle and Giulian put Avalon into a good early position. They produced a strong second to Joe and Brendan Savell, the Brigantine brothers who won their third straight South Jersey doubles row.
“We rode it pretty well,” Nagle says. “We got off to that fast start and even though we did not win, getting four team points [for second] was important. We only got two last year [for fourth], so getting second meant that Ryan Finnegan would not have to win his race, as he did last year.”
“I have always looked up to Gary’s work ethic, going all the way back to watching him wrestle at Middle Township High School,” says Giulian, who spoke to Seven Mile Times moments before heading back to football practice at The College of New Jersey. A rising senior, he led the team in tackles last year with 99 and his team produced a winning mark (6-4) for the first time since 2011.
“I am very proud to represent Avalon,” Giulian says. “I remember first getting in the boat, learning to do this, and finally teaming up with Gary.”
Grisbaum Provides a Five-Spot
Grisbaum parlayed the team’s doubles effort into an electrifying rally from fourth place to capture the swim. The 2022 South Jersey singles champ had to charge past Margate’s Zach Vasser and Atlantic City’s Charles Schreiner, winner of the last two South Jerseys. He delivered five crucial points to Avalon’s team effort.
“I took a good line at the flag and somehow got next to Charles,” Grisbaum recalls. “At first, I was just happy to be in the race. I had lost in the Kerrs and it had been a blow to my ego. I didn’t really expect to win this time.
“But all of a sudden after the turn, I have a real chance in this race. You ask when a person knows when it’s time to make a move? I honestly don’t know. But about halfway through the return trip I felt like I was in a good spot.
“I am glad to be part of a team-winning effort. I told Chief Matt that they won without me last year. That was just rude,” he says with a laugh.
Finnegan Holds Firm
After Grisbaum rolled home, Avalon was in a commanding team position. Finnegan was then pushed sideways at the start of the singles row. Disaster loomed, but he rebounded.
“Obviously, I wanted to win, but after that start I really just had to stay with it,” says Finnegan, who had beaten the same competitors one week earlier at the Margate Memorials. “Fortunately, Gary, Dave, and Dolan had put us where we needed to be. They made it easy on me.”
And he roared back. By the turn, he was fourth. He then moved into third and finished strong, 11 seconds behind victorious Mike McGrath of Longport. McGrath, incidentally, delivered the clinching points when Longport gained its fifth straight South Jersey title in 2021.
As Finnegan neared the shore, teammates began to whoop it up and celebrate their team championship.
Cubbler uses savvy to win again
Becca Cubbler, meanwhile, had a superior season. She won seven of eight races and prevailed with dominance. Repeating her intellectual savvy from last year – when she went without a bodysuit in frigid waters while others used one, thus being able to feel lighter for the swim – Cubbler handicapped the course beforehand. She slowly swam all of it in warmups with Grisbaum, gaining a sense of course positioning.
Cubbler would swim north and then let the current propel her to the flag (almost resembling a human field goal), maintained a good position in the race, and took control for the second half.
“There is an extra sense of pride becoming the first recognized women’s South Jerseys champ,” says Cubbler, who captured the 2024 race before it was for the South Jersey title. “I was nervous. I had the pressure to defend, but I was also motivated and ready to defend. There is an amazing sense of pride doing this both for women competitors and for this patrol.
“It feels awesome.”
And this Avalon season looked awesome, top to bottom.
The shoreline is populated with talented patrols. It’s hard to win one South Jersey title, let alone string them together.
Avalon fans delighted by this run can take heart with one more thing: Many of the performers figure to be back next year.
This movement might still be ascending.
