Florida Tech Panthers Varsity 8+ Take Home Bronze Medal at Inaugural AARC Sprints

By Adam Lowenstein, Florida Tech News Bureau // May 16, 2023

Panthers to compete at the IRA's in Mercer Lake, New Jersey on June 2

The Men’s Varsity 8+ crew competed inaugural Atlantic Sprints hosted by the newly founded Atlantic Association of Rowing Colleges on the Occoquan Reservoir throughout Sunday. (Florida Tech image)

BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – The Men’s Varsity 8+ crew competed inaugural Atlantic Sprints hosted by the newly founded Atlantic Association of Rowing Colleges on the Occoquan Reservoir throughout Sunday.

The Varsity 8+ started off Sunday by taking part in heat one of two going up against Marietta, Colgate, and Loyola.

Heat two consisted of Marist, Saint Josephs, Jacksonville, and Stetson with the top three teams moving on to advance to the Grand Finals later in the day while to bottom two teams would go on to compete in the Petite Finals.

Florida Tech managed to take finish second in their heat covering the 2,000m course in 5:59.3 seconds just behind Colgate (05:53.8) and in Infront of Marietta (06:04.3).

Joining Florida Tech, Colgate, and Marietta in the Grand Finals were Saint Josephs (05:51.6), Jacksonville (05:53.8), and Stetson (05:56.9). Florida Tech was placed in lane five to begin the race beside Saint Josephs in the four-lane and Stetson in lane six.

The Panthers fell behind not too long into the race dropping back to fourth while eventually pulling ahead. Coming down to the final few strokes of the race Florida Tech and Jacksonville were Bow to Bow battling for third with one another until the Panthers pulled ahead right towards the end to take a spot on the podium for third and walk away from the inaugural AARC Sprints with a Bronze medal finish with a time of 06:09.7. taking home first was Colgate (05:58.7) followed by Saint Josephs (06:05.0)

Varsity 8+

■ Coxswain / Elizabeth Bowman

■ 8 / Sandro Gardella

■ 7 / Justas Kuskevicius

■ 6 / Domantas Marocka

■ 5 / Omer Bayram

■ 4 / Joshua Navarro

■ 3 / Zach Judge

■ 2 / Arnedas Kelmelis

■ Bow / Hayden Linke

UP NEXT: Florida Tech will be back on the water June 2nd through June 4th where they’ll compete at IRA’s in Mercer Lake, New Jersey.