Pitt swimming and diving trounced by Notre Dame and Virginia Tech

In Pitt’s second tri-meet of the season against ACC competitors Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams were unable to edge past their competitors.

The men’s team finished the weekend with a crushing loss to Notre Dame, 238-115, and a devastating defeat to Virginia Tech, 261-92. The women’s team didn’t fair any better, dropping 231-121.2 to the Hokies and 244-109 to the Fighting Irish.

Although the teams were unsuccessful in their two-day weekend meet at Trees Hall, several Panthers gathered their own victories in individual events.

During the first day of competition, senior Dominic Giordano earned another 1m title for the season with a six-dive score of 359.25. Pitt freshman Joe Ference took sixth place in the same event for the men’s with an individual score of 275.75.

Junior Meme Sharp missed her second dive in the 3m, resulting in Virginia Tech’s Ashlynn Peters winning the event with a score of 299.80. Pitt freshman Krista Jones finished the same dive with a score of 262.50, placing fourth overall.

In the swimmers’ lanes, seven men and seven women earned top-five finishes for Pitt.

Seniors Kinga Cichowska and Zach Lierley had the best finishes of the night, both grabbing second-place finishes for the Panthers in the 100 breast and 400 individual medley, respectively.

Junior Amanda Richey, freshman Valerie Daigneault, redshirt senior Henrique Machado and sophomore Brian Lovasik contributed to the Panther team scores with fourth-place finishes.

The women’s 200m free relay team and 400m medley team took third, while the men’s 200m free relay team and 400m medley team took fourth to wrap up the first day.

The second day in the pool brought about another victory for Giordano in the 3m diving event with a score of 393.30. He beat out Virginia Tech’s Thomas Schiesl by nearly 50 points in the six-dive event.

Sharp finished on top of the leader’s board in a closely contested 1m diving event. She almost gave up the event after establishing a lead over Peters, but won the event by a mere .05 points with a final score of 277.50.

The Panther swimmers finished the day with 12 top-five finishes in the pool, splitting an even six between the men’s and women’s teams.

Machado grabbed his first individual title of the meet in the 100m back, out-touching his second-place competitor by 0.10 seconds. Cichowska also earned an individual title for the women’s team in the 200m breast with a time of 2:14.87.

“We had a couple of opportunities here and there, but I think overall the team dove very well,” head coach John Hargis said. “I think the team swam very well and raced very well, and we competed hard and that’s what we want to continue to do moving forward,” Hargis said.

The Panthers will travel to Columbus, Ohio, to take part in the Ohio Invitationals at 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 18.