Pitt
Ohio State Invitational
Panthers Post Quality Times to Open Ohio State Invitational
11/18/2016 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
Results
COLUMBUS—Pitt produced eight top-10 finishes and one school record on the opening day of the Ohio State Fall Invitational as the Panthers competed against some of college swimming's top talent in Columbus, Ohio.
Facing the likes of five-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky and Stanford, along with the hosting Buckeyes, Kentucky, Yale, Penn State, Iowa, Utah and others, the Panthers finished the day in sixth place in the men's team standings with 105 points and in eighth place in the women's team race with 52 points.
The Pitt men's team saw Aaron Sett, Samy Helmbacher, Zach Lierley, Henrique Machado and the 400 medley relay squad of Machado, Haden Calegan, Jake Tovey and Brian Lovasik and the 200 free relay group of Machado, Calegan, Lovasik and Tommy Cestare finish in the top-10 of their respective events with very impressive times.
Sett took seventh in the 500 free in 4:26.43 after he posted a personal record time of 4:25.69 in the preliminaries on Friday morning. Helmbacher (seventh, 1:49.37) and Lierley (10th, 1:50.18) both competed in the finals of the 200 IM and after quality qualifying races below the 1:50.00 threshold, with the freshman Helmbacher setting a new PR by several seconds. Machado placed eighth in the 50 free with a time of 20.36 after racing the prelims in a PR of 20.23 to advance to the finals. And in the relays, the 400 medley relay team took ninth with by far a season-best time of 3:16.85, while the 200 free relay team also placed ninth with another season-best mark of 1:21.77.
The Pitt women were led by the top-10 efforts of junior Amanda Richey and the 200 free relay team of Lina Rathsack, Emily Murphy, Melissa Pocsai and Rachel Brown. Rathsack also set a new school record in the 200 IM with her 12th-place finish, posting a new Pitt-best time of 1:59.29.
Competing against Ledecky, Richey took seventh in the 500 free with an NCAA B standard time of 4:44.96, by far her best time of the season and less than a second off her personal record. The Panthers' 200 free relay team also produced a sixth-place swim in 1:31.83, just tenths of a second of the Pitt school record.
Several other Pitt swimmers also produced quality times to advance to secondary final races Friday evening as the Panthers continued to show the improvement that first-year head coach John Hargis has been looking for in each meet early in the season.
In the diving events, Meme Sharp took fourth in the 3-meter dive with a score of 286.80 and Dominic Giordano placed 10th on 1M with a tally of 298.80.
The Panthers resume action at the Ohio State Fall Invitational tomorrow at 10 a.m.
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