Oak Ridge, Tenn. – The Florida Tech Women's Varsity Four won gold for the third year in a row at the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) Championship Regatta.  The Women's Novice Four in their inaugural race at the regatta won Silver.

This tremendous accomplishment comes only one week after the same Women's Varsity 4+ won gold for the third year in a row, and the Women's Novice 4+ captured Silver for the first time at the Dad Vail Regatta in New Jersey. The ACRA Regatta is considered the national championship for club programs, with over 75 collegiate programs in the competition.  The Varsity Four competed against 32 boats, and the Novice Four raced against 20 boats.
 
Both boats won their respective heats and semi-final races on Friday and Saturday. For the Varsity 4+, the Crimson and Gray got off to a fast start and slowly moved away from the field over the 2000-meter course to win with a time of 7:36, beating rival Lafayette College by four seconds, and ahead of third-place Orange Coast by 11 seconds.  This was the third year in a row the Varsity 4+ won Gold, with four of the five athletes being in every winning boat since 2023.  In the Novice Women's Final, the Lady Panthers also had a fast start and were in first place at the halfway mark.  However, Liberty University held strong and had an amazing sprint to pass Florida Tech in the last 500 meters to take the Gold, while the Lady Panthers held off strong pushes from Lafayette College and Loyola Marymount, who finished third and fourth.

This was the last collegiate race for senior and team captain Sydney Frieberger.  Sydney and four freshmen were the only women to stay on the team in 2023 after the program was moved from Varsity to Club status.  However, these tenacious women bonded together and continued to train like a Varsity program and have been winning Gold ever since.  Sydney has been invited to row with the elite Arion rowing program in Saratoga Springs, NY, where she hopes to continue to improve to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.

Varsity 4+ 
Coxswain /McKenna Barr
4 /Brynn Romberger
3 /Ashton Clark
2 /Sydney Freiberger
Bow /Sophia Sichtnik

Novice 4+ 
Coxswain /Caroline Morris
4 /Samantha Eisenhofer
3 /Kiera Springer
2 /Julia Pearson
Bow /Maryam Young
 
Full regatta results can be see via Herenow at https://legacy.herenow.com/results/#/races/21330/results
 
For the latest news, updates and information on the Florida Tech women's rowing team, visit FloridaTechSports.com. Fans can also stay up-to-date on the latest Panthers news by following Florida Tech Athletics on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.