Sports Lowdown

Following the postponement of their match against Palm Beach Atlantic last Wednesday, the Florida Tech Women’s Soccer team was home to take on Lynn on Saturday, and came away with a hard-earned 1-0 win. The victory snapped a three-game losing streak for the Panthers. Keira McCarthy scored on a penalty kick in the first half and it held up, in a defensive battle that saw each team take just nine shots. Florida Tech Goalie Karlyn Prisco turned away just two shots, while Fighting Knights goaltender Alexa Downie had eight shots come her way, saving seven. Prisco made her only save of the first half in the 27 th minute against Claudia Kraut and notched her fifth win of the season, four of those are shutouts. The key play in the game came in the 31 st minute when Elin Svensson found McCarthy with a pass inside the box. McCarthy was taken down, resulting in a penalty kick. She beat Downie on the ensuing penalty kick with 30:10 gone in the half and with that, got her s...

West Florida's Blue Wahoos Stadium/Jerry Durney The Florida Tech Panthers gave away a very winnable game Saturday night, losing 42-39 to the West Florida Argonauts, who are in their inaugural season. With the win, the Argos kept the first-ever Coastal Classic trophy in Pensacola. It was not a good night for the Panthers for much of the game, but to their credit, they did fight back in the fourth quarter, outscoring West Florida 22-14. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late, as the Panthers undefeated start and their #16 ranking both fell by the wayside. The Panthers (4-1) had given up 35 points combined in their first four games, but on this night, the upstart Argos forced Florida Tech into making mistakes and took advantage of them. The Panthers had a season high 15 penalties for 118 yards, many of them self-inflicted. The defense that had been playing lights out in the previous four games, just couldn’t find their footing in this game, as the Argos put up 4...

The Florida Tech Men’s Soccer team endured almost three hours of weather-related delays on Wednesday, in a 2-1 extra-time loss to the Sailfish in West Palm Beach. Add to that, the eight and a half minutes of overtime and you have a match that ended at 12:14 a.m. on Thursday. The two teams only combined for six shots in a first half that was played in very sloppy conditions.  Palm Beach Atlantic finally found the back of the net, just shy of 10 minutes into the second half. Kebba Nyang was able to beat the Panthers defense and then Panthers’ goalie Christian Moerch , giving Palm Beach Atlantic a 1-0 lead. After an extended lightning delay, the Panthers got on the board when Brandon Smalley took a free kick that he got into the box to Bjoern Jaeger, who passed to Jack Willison . He headed it past PBA goalie Elliott Barker, to knot the game, 1-1. Palm Beach Atlantic applied most of the offensive zone pressure the rest of the half, taking six shots following the ty...

The Florida Tech Football team is coming off a big win over Division I FCS opponent Presbyterian on Saturday, coming away with a 28-7 victory. “Our game plan going in was to hit some big plays on them,” said head coach Steve Englehart. “We didn’t know if we could consistently drive the ball. Our first drive we got into the red zone and scored with like a nine play drive, after that, it was all about the big plays.” Englehart had high praise once again this week for his defense that has now allowed just 35 points this season and only seven in the last three weeks.  “They shut down the run and made them throw the ball and then got the pick-six by Jo Jackson to put the game away.” “The defense has been really good,” he continued. “A big part of that is our defensive staff. The four of those guys work very well together and put a good game plan and work hard on, getting the right personnel out there and making the right calls to stop what the other team is trying to do...

The Florida Tech Volleyball team is in the midst of a nine-game losing streak, including two losses last week to Lynn and Barry, both on the road. On Thursday September 22, the Panthers fell 3-0 to Lynn, committing 20 hit errors and losing by scores of 25-11, 25-21 and 25-15. Kiersten Rosa , who has had assist totals in the 40’s a couple times this season, was held to 22 in this match, but she added seven digs to lead the team. Kelly Germain led the Panthers with 13 kills, added five digs and blocked two. Jenna Schaffer and Samantha Reeves each contributed four kills and a block. Lynn went on a run that saw them win seven out of eight points in game one and led 13-5 and then went on another eight-point run to go up 22-7. Before winning by 14. Game two saw the Panthers jump out to a 7-4 lead, before the Fighting Knights won four straight points to take the lead. The game went back-and-forth the rest of the way, but Lynn won three of the last four points, to win 2...