Pitt
AT&T Winter Nationals
Pitt Completes Day Two Of Winter Nationals
12/4/2014 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
GREENSBORO, N.C. - The full first day of the AT&T Winter Nationals came to a close on Thursday night at Greensboro Aquatics Complex with both of Pitt's men's and women's 400 medley relay teams making a splash in the pool.
Pitt's four-man relay team, consisting of junior Mack Rice, senior Luke Nosbisch, senior Kourosh Ahani and junior David Sweeney, all earned medals for their seventh place performance in the 400 medley relay, posting a season best time of 3:16.05. The field was made up of 20 teams.
The women were a respectable 12th in the 400 medley relay out of 25 teams and recorded a season best time of 3:41.57. Pitt's four swimmers that made up the relay team were junior Blair Wegescheide, sophomore Kinga Cichowska, junior Mackenzie Meixner and senior Dani des Tombe.
"It was a nice evening of competition," said head coach Chuck Knoles. "Our men's 400 medley relay finished in seventh place. That's a nice finish for the men, who had their fastest time in more than two years. The women's 400 medley relay finished 12th. Being able to finish in the top 16 in the country is a great performance by those four ladies."
Junior Danyel Johnson was the only Pitt individual to qualify for one of the finals on the first full day of competition, earning a spot in Final C after posting the 22nd fastest time of the morning prelim of 23.11 seconds, which is a season best by any Panthers swimmer this year. Eventually Johnson finished seventh in Final C with a time of 23.15 seconds.
"Danyel Johnson was able to go under her lifetime best for the second time in one day, which was nice to see and very encouraging."
A handful of Pitt swimmers narrowly missed out on grabbing a spot in Thursday night's finals across the board.
In the women's 500 free, junior Kaleigh Ritter's time of 4:47.70 was a mere 0.30 seconds away from taking a spot in the finals, but she had to settle for being the second alternate. Competing in her first Winter Nationals, freshman Amanda Richey wasn't too far behind, finishing in 31st with a time of 4:48.46.
Sophomore Zach Lierly found himself in a similar situation to Ritter, missing the finals of the 200 IM by three spots, or 0.08 seconds, after he placed 27th with a time of 1:49.27.
In addition to Johnson's performance in the 50 free, Pitt nearly had two more swimmers qualify for the finals from each the men and women. Junior Sean Heiden had his fastest time of the season of 20.19 seconds, but wound up in 31st, while freshman Emily Murphy was 32nd in 23.26 seconds.
Junior Martin Vogel also had the best 500 free swim of the season by a Pitt swimmer with his 4:27.07 showing.
On the opening night of competition last night, the Pitt men posted two more top-10 finishes in relay races, taking seventh in the 800 free relay and ninth in the 200 medley relay. The 800 relay team (6:35.32) included Vogel, senior Jon Lierley, senior Joey Notarianni and Sweeney, while the 200 medley (1:29.83) group was Rice, Nosbisch, Ahani and Heiden.
The women, meanwhile, were 11th in the 200 medley relay and 13th in the 800 free relay.
Winter Nations continues Friday, Dec. 5 at 9 a.m. and concludes on Saturday, Dec. 6
Players Mentioned
