Florida Tech Rowing Earns Three Wins At Head of the Hooch
By Florida Tech // November 10, 2015
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Florida Tech recorded three wins at the Head of the Hooch on Saturday and Sunday at Ross’s Landing Park.
The victories were earned in the men’s championship four, double and open eight. FIT was the runner-up in the championship eight, finishing eight-tenths of a second off Oklahoma City ‘A’ at 14:53.6. The ‘A’ crew included coxswain AaronEvans, stroke Carson Green, Joe Horn, WoodySandhu, Kevin Coyle, Martynas Mickus, MatasLukosevicius, Nikola Selakovic and bow AndyKonecny.
A ‘B’ crew also rowed for the Panthers and recorded the seventh-fastest time at 15:25.1. Racing in the boat were coxswain Luis Fernandez Diaz, stroke Marko Milovanovic, Sebastian Spivey, PhillipMachen, Ljubomir, Josip Bobinac, Kristjan Markovc,Batuhan Cakici and bow Nate Hodge.
“We had a pretty successful regatta,” head coach Jim Granger said.
“The only thing that was a little disappointing was the champ eight. The lineups were relatively even, but the guys in the ‘A’ boat paid too much attention to UVA and didn’t account for another fast boat in the field, which ended up winning. The ‘B’ boat should have performed better. In the afternoon, we came back and performed better in the smaller boats.”
FIT collected its first victory on Saturday with Evans coxing, Mickus in the stroke seat, Sebastian Spivey in the three seat, Machen in the two seat and Markovc in the bow seat in the championship four. Their winning time was 16:17.0.
As day one came to a close, the Panthers placed four crews in the top five in the double. Coyle and Lukosevicius registered the fastest time at 16:36.9. Konecny and Gavric had the third-best time of 7:10.0.
They edged out Sandhu and Bobinac, who finished fourth by 2.5 seconds. Horn and Green put an exclamation mark on the team’s performance in the event with the fifth-fastest time of 17:24.1.
Markovc opened racing for the Panthers on Sunday by posting the third-best time in the single at 18:35.4. FIT then ripped through the water in the open eight, winning its third race by seven seconds over runner-up Oklahoma City. A second Panther crew notched the third-fastest time at 14:55.8.
In the winning boat was Evans at coxswain, Selakovic at stroke, Konecny, Bobinac, Gavric, Mickus, Lukosevicius, Cakici and Spivey at bow. In the ‘B’ boat were Fernandez Diaz at coxswain, Green at stroke, Horn, Machen, Coyle, Sandhu, Markovic, Marko Milovanovicand Hodge at bow.
The Panthers will now return to Melbourne and will start training for their spring championship season slated to open in March.
“As we transition into the winter months, we’re going to continue looking to get stronger and faster,” Granger said.
“The guys in our eight need to get after it every day. We have depth that we’ve never had before due to our freshmen class. It should be pretty fun.”
