Pitt
Drexel, Clemson (W), Fairmont St., West Chester, WV Wesleyan, California (Pa.) (W), IUP, Lock Haven
Panthers Win Big at Pitt Invite
11/23/2014 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
- The University of Pittsburgh swimming and diving teams wrapped up the Pitt Invitational with both the men and women emerging as major victors. The women placed first with a score of 3,010 while the men took the top spot with 2,394. The margins between the Panthers and the second place finishers were 1,398 and 583, respectively.
"You kind of toss the dice when you do a meet like this in the middle of the season with half your team resting and half the team ready to race fast," said head coach Chuck Knoles. "But I'm very, very pleased with the results. As a matter of fact, I'm more than pleased. They've exceeded my expectations so far.
Sophomore Kinga Cichowska once again wrote her name in the school record books, this time in the 200-yd breaststroke. She eclipsed her own top mark of 2:12.02 with an event-winning (and NCAA B cut) time of 2:11.25. It's the second event this weekend that will now bear her name at the top after she broke the school 100 breast record twice on Saturday.
Freshman Amanda Richey won two events today to collect five individual weekend wins. She posted a NCAA B cut time of 16:15.84 in the 1650-yd free, just two seconds off the school record. The freshman followed that with a win in the 200-yd back (2:01.87) to post a new top team time this season.
"It was a lot of fun," Richey said. "I'm really excited for the coming weeks and meets. This shows everyone is getting better and we're all heading in the right direction. I knew Marian (Clark) was an amazing coach, so I had an idea that I would do pretty well with Marian coaching me."
The women's dominant performance this weekend was typified in today's 200 breast Final, where the Panthers captured first through fourth place as Cichowska, senior Cam Dixon (2:14.27) and freshman Katherine Fernander (2:15.41) all hit NCAA B cut times. Freshman Emily Murphy won the 100 Free with a team season-best 51.08 mark. Five more Pitt swimmers raced to new personal season-bests in the Championship Final of that event as well.
The men were paced by senior Luke Nosbisch's NCAA B cut showing (1:59.71) in the 200 Breast. Junior David Sweeney took first in the 100 Free with the team's best time this season (44.76), while Pitt took three of the top five spots in the event. Freshman Austin Doss (1:49.28) and junior Matthew Tankle (1:49.48) went one-two in the 200 Back with the team's two best marks of the year.
"In swimming, we're one of those sports where it doesn't really matter who's in the water swimming against you because we've got that forever-faithful time clock," said Coach Knoles. "This gives the kids the confidence that they know they can do it. They know they can compete at the national level. That's the next step to competing at the ACC and NCAA Championships."
The Pitt swimming and diving teams will next compete at the AT&T Winter Nationals held Dec. 4-6 in Greensboro, N.C.
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