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'Rockin Robin' wins 2nd annual Casey Cares charity rockfish tournament

Casey Cares holds 2nd annual rockfish tournament
Casey Cares holds 2nd annual rockfish tournament
Casey Cares holds 2nd annual rockfish tournament
Casey Cares holds 2nd annual rockfish tournament
Casey Cares holds 2nd annual rockfish tournament
Casey Cares holds 2nd annual rockfish tournament
Posted at 9:18 AM, Jun 04, 2017
and last updated 2017-06-04 09:19:17-04

The second annual Casey Cares rockfish tournament came down to the wire.

With five minutes left before the weigh-in ended, the crew of the Rockin Robin, helmed by Jason Zagasky, pulled into the slip at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club marina. The crew hopped out, tied their boat up and hustled their fish to the scales. It weighed in at 14.5 pounds, topping the previous first place team by nearly a pound.

The charity event was the idea of John Sovero who serves on the board of the Casey Cares Foundation. The Catonsville transplant now lives on the Eastern Shore with his family and is a huge outdoorsman.

"I'm an avid fisherman," Sovero explained during the during the Leaderboard Party. "So I decided to talk to Casey about doing a fishing tournament. We started it last year. It went very well." 

One of the great parts about this tournament is Casey Cares families get to join in on the fishing fun, including two this year.

"Some of our families really need a day like today just to forget about what they're going through; to forget about the needle pricks, to forget about the doctor's visits," said Casey Cares founder, Casey Baynes. "That's what makes them feel normal, and that's all any of them want to feel. They want to feel like it was before they got diagnosed."

The "Captain's Party" wrapped up the day with a fresh rockfish dinner, prizes awarded to the first and second place finishers, and a silent auction that included Orioles and Ravens memorabilia, handcrafted fishing rods, and other items.

*Jeff Herman is the assistant news director at WMAR | ABC2 and a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association. His main passion while not at work is fishing. This column is part of a series of columns he writes for our outdoors page . You can read more of his columns here . Follow him on Twitter @JeffABC2News and @TightLinesABC2.