JACKSONVILLE, FL. – The High Point University women's rowing team completed the First Coast Head Race on Saturday afternoon.
 
Head Coach Jessica Deitrick: "We worked hard this past week and today we saw that hard work pays off. Each boat was able to maintain the technical changes we worked on and improved as racers. We need to take the momentum we gained today and put it into our training as we move forward."

The Panthers were slotted in four different events throughout the day on the St. Johns and Arlington Rivers. The first race of the morning consisted of 13 4+ boats which saw High Point with four entries.

HPU's "B" crew, coxed by Carolyn Fox led the Panthers with a fifth-place finish out of 13 entries, crossing the line in 10:04.50. They narrowly edged out the "A" boat (coxswain Arianna Ording) by less than a second, as the A-crew followed in 10:05.35 to place sixth overall.

The "C" boat, guided by Kat Chandler, clocked in at 10:25.91, securing eighth place and holding off a late push from Embry-Riddle's top entry. Rounding out the Panthers' entries, the "D" crew (coxswain Grayson Williams) crossed in 10:39.22, good for tenth in a highly competitive field that saw University of Central Florida sweep the top four spots.

In the afternoon session, the Panthers' first boat in the 8+ - coxed by Williams – led the team to a victory with an 8:52.08-time, topping UCF (8:56.71) by more than four seconds. High Point's second 8+ saw a powerful row to claim second place with a time of 9:21.21, finishing less than a second behind race-winner UCF (9:20.61). HPU was about 20 seconds faster from the third-place finisher.

Wrapping up the regatta for HPU, the Freshman/Novice 8+ went out a put up a second-place finish with a 10:00.20 time, coxed by Alesandra Belongea. The Panthers were just about six seconds behind the winner, and about a full minute ahead of the third-place finisher.

HPU Lineups:
1v8: Grayson Williams (C), Anna Venditti, Mallory Sullivan, Riley Verner, Genevieve Alexander, Saige Wiggins, Audrey Houle, Lucy Laborde, Kate Concepcion
1v4: A) Arianna Ording (C), Anna Venditti, Mallory Sullivan, Lucy Laborde, Kate Concepcion
        B) Carolyn Fox (C), Riley Verner, Genevieve Alexander, Saige Wiggins, Audrey Houle
        C) Kat Chandler (C), Anneke Calhoune, Willow Conley, Madelyn Cummings, Michaela Islas
        D) Grayson Williams (C), Rylee Templar, Caitlin Enright, Alexander Laufer, Aliyah Strickland
2v8: Arianna Ording (C), Anneke Calhoun, Caitlin Enright, Alison Sims, Willow Conley, Alexander Laufer, Price Rinker, Madelyn Cummings, Aliyah Strickland
Novice 8: Alesandra Belongea (C), Rylee Templar, Michaela Islas, Hannah Grant, Gabby Caintic, Bria Henry, Annabelle Everding, Avery Falor, Cate Ward

Up Next: High Point will race in the Head of the Occoquan on November 1 in Fairfax Station, Virginia.