Regatta Results

2023 – 2024

Head of the Charles

Men’s Championship Four

The Men’s Four starting in 11th position were very pleased with their performance finishing 7th in the very competitive Championship Four behind top tier Division I schools of Princeton, Penn, Georgetown, Cornell, Syracuse and Boston U. Sophomore Sandro Gardella confidently stroked the four leading Justus Kuskevicius, Domantus Marocka and Arnedas Kelmelis and guided by coxswain Justin Woodyard.

The men’s time of would have had them finishing first in the Men’s Collegiate Four event 6 seconds ahead of winner Stetson University. Click here and scroll to 7:04:33 on the timeline to see video of the men approaching the Eliot Bridge.

Women’s Collegiate Four

The Women, no longer novices at the HOCR, started second and crushed the competitive field of 38 boats finishing second improving on their third-place finish from last year. Notably the ladies beat all the other Florida schools entered in the race including Embry Riddle. Rumor has it the ladies are looking to follow the trend to Gold next year!

Coxswain McKenna Barr did an excellent job steering in her first race down the Charles River. Brynn Romberger, Ashton Clark, Sydney Whisler and Sydney Freiberger were relentless stroke after stroke. They finished 8 seconds behind Vanderbilt and 7 seconds ahead of third place Clemson and 21 seconds ahead of 6th place Embry Riddle. Click here and scroll to 9:06:47 on the timeline to see video of the ladies approaching the Eliot Bridge.

A historic note for the women on the Charles in the last 5 straight Head of the Charles, the women have been a top 3 medaling crew

2018 – 1st
2019 – 1st (Course Record, still stands)
2021 – 3rd
2022 – 3rd
2022 – 2nd

2022 – 2023

SIRA 15 -16 April 2023

3rd Men’s Varsity Eight
1st Women’s Varsity Four

The Women’s program continued their dominance in the Southeast with another convincing victory at SIRA winning the Varsity Women’s Four event. They led the whole race and held off a strong push from Kansas State with 700m to go winning with a time of 7:33.95 over Kansas State at 7:36.57 and Jacksonville at 7:43.42. Rumor has it the Kansas ladies were not happy! Also, the former Tulane Head Coach who is on the SIRA Board complimented Coach Adam for the women entering the Varsity event where they deserved to be rather than the less challenging Club event.

The Men’s program claimed bronze in a thrilling come from behind photo finish in the Varsity Eight finals. With 500 meters to go, they were sitting in fifth place. The men sprinted the final 500m, walking through two boats and catching up to Jacksonville and Virginia where they went bow ball to bow ball to the finish. Jacksonville edged out second place with a time of 6:14.430 over Tech’s time of 6:14.518 and Virginia at 6:14.598. Colgate’s senior filled eight claimed the top spot in 6:05.092.

Despite the tremendous finish, the men were disappointed in not beating JU whom they had easily beaten in prior matches. The little-known secret is that the eight had a last-minute lineup change when Freshman Hugo Ruzicka injured himself on Wednesday April 12th. Unfortunately, the injury requires surgery taking Hugo out the rest of the year. However, sophomore Zach Judge stepped up to the plate scratching himself out of the Double entry to replace Hugo. The men rowed the new lineup for the first time on the Friday before the competition making the strong finish all more the remarkable.

Dad Vail results on Regatta Timing

FIRA 1 April 2023

1st Men’s Varsity Eight
1st Men’s Varsity Four
1st Women’s Varsity Four
1st Men’s Double
2nd Men’s Pair
2nd Women’s Pair
7th Women’s Double

The current rowing programs may be small but the men and women loomed large making their presence known at the Florida Intercollegiate Rowing Association (FIRA) Championships this year with victories in the Men’s Varsity Eight, Women’s and Men’s Varsity Four, and Men’s Double. The Women’s pair and Men’s pair both placed 2nd and Women’s Double placed 7th. One advantage of FIRA is that participants can compete in more than one event. This made the Women’s Four victory all more rewarding for the ladies knowing they beat the best four women rowers from the larger Division II Varsity programs of Embry Riddle and Barry University. The young squad of four frosh and one sophomore showed extreme maturity in holding off Embry Riddle winning by 1.7 seconds.The victory was a sweet return to FIRA for the Men’s program. Their last competition at FIRA was in 2009 when they also won the V8 trophy. For the older Alum, FIRA was known “back in the day” as “States”. Seeded second behind Jacksonville, the men in the V8 proved they are number one in the state leading the entire way winning with open water over JU by 3.3 seconds.

Men’s and Women’s Results on Row2K

Hatter Invitational

In the first go around they Men faced off against both Embry-Riddle and UCF’s men’s club and proved to be victorious for their first return to the water in the eight in nearly a year. In the second race of the day, the men lined up against Stetson and left no doubt that they were the better crew this day, winning by just over 7 seconds. The women’s four had a chance to compete against 2 boats from UCF’s club team, as well as a men’s four from Tufts university which got all they could handle from our women, as they were still in contact with them through the 1000 meter mark, and finished just 18 seconds behind them. They were over 35 seconds ahead of the two UCF crews.

Women’s Varsity Four results on Row2K

Head of the Charles 23 Oct 2022

As a Club Program, the Men’s and Women’s programs can only afford to attend one Fall regatta which is the Head of the South on 12 November. However, FFRA raised over $7,000 to send two fours to the Head of the Charles Regatta on 23 October. Links to the results on Regatta Central are below.

It was a great experience and showing by both boats. The men had some stiff competition in the Champ 4+ event and finished 13th of 17. The women had a phenomenal result in the Collegiate 4+ race finishing 3rd of 35 boats. This was with 3 freshmen in the boat, 2 of which started rowing last month! The other 2 members of the boat were novices last year and bested former conference rivals Barry (who they passed during the race) and Embry-Riddle.

2021 – 2022

Below are links to the Recap Story found on the Florida Tech Athletics Webpage that provides a narrative with the results. For the current year, Florida Tech Athletics no longer reports on rowing since it was moved to Club Status.