Lightweight eight-plus crew celebrate

The Georgia Tech men's varsity lightweight eight-plus crew won a national championship and the men's heavyweight varsity four-plus finished second at the Dad Vail Regatta, collegiate rowing's biggest event, in Philadelphia May 13.

The lightweight eight-plus win punctuated a dominating season marred by only a narrow defeat to St. Joseph's University in April. The Yellow Jackets trounced that same boat by nearly three seconds to win the championship — the first Tech eight to ever win gold at Dad Vail.

"I can't really say we were shocked, we were ecstatic," said head coach Rob Canavan. "Last fall, we beat most of the Ivy League colleges and won the silver medal at the Head of the Charles race in Boston so I knew we had something special."

The heavyweight varsity four-plus team swapped the lead several times over the 2,000-meter course and lost by inches to the University of California, according to Canavan.

Hoisting the championship trophy are, left to right, Brian Holman, Cameron Troxel, Ben Good, coxswain Theresa Mara, Shane Bechler, John Kapteyn, Elijah Holsenbeck, Michael Pieper, Geoff Shealy and coach Canavan.

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