JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Florida Tech Women's Rowing team began the season strong by earning medals in each of the three events they competed in at the First Coast Head Race on Saturday, Oct. 11.
 
Tech took first in the Collegiate 8+ and Collegiate 4+ events. Florida Tech also placed second in the Freshman/Novice 4+ event.
 
The strong wind forced the officials to shorten the typical 5,000-meter race to less than 3,000 meters. The Women's Varsity 4+ won their event by a large margin over the University of South Florida with a winning time of 10:26.36. Their time was 3 seconds ahead of local rival Embry-Riddle University, which competed in the Division I event.

The Freshmen/Novice 4+, consisting of all rowers who had not rowed in high school, competing in their first-ever race. They had an impressive second-place finish, clocking in at 12:16.8, which was only 19 seconds behind a more experienced Embry-Riddle crew.

The Varsity 8+ wrapped up the day winning by 6 seconds with a time of 9:54.61 over High Point University. The boat performed extremely well, considering they had only been in that lineup once and had three novices in the boat.

 
Varsity 8+
Coxswain /Mckenna Barr
8 /Brynn Romberger
7 /Ashton Clark
6 /Samantha Eisenhofer
5 /Kiera Springer
4 /Eliana Wilson
3 /Faith Hanson
2 /Sofia Gil
Bow /Ava Caruso

Varsity 4+ 
Coxswain /Mckenna Barr
4 /Brynn Romberger
3 /Ashton Clark
2 /Samantha Eisenhofer
Bow /Kiera Springer

Freshman/Novice 4+ 
Coxswain /Robyn Presgrave
4 /Eliana Wilson
3 /Izzy Lichwala
2 /Sofia Gil
Bow /Ava Caruso
 

UP NEXT: The Women's Varsity 4+ travels to Boston to compete in the famous Head of the Charles Regatta on Sunday, October 19^th. This will be the 60^th anniversary of the event, which is the world's largest 3-day regatta, drawing over 11,000 rowers from around the globe.