Swimming and Diving: Pitt finishes regular season strong

The regular seasons for Pitt’s swimming and diving teams came to a close Saturday as they… The regular seasons for Pitt’s swimming and diving teams came to a close Saturday as they squared off against four other squads at Trees Pool. Pitt won all four contests with ease, conquering the California (Pa.) Vulcans, Clarion Golden Eagles, Grove City Wolverines and the hometown Carnegie Mellon Tartans. None of the opposing teams broke triple-digits in the scoring.

Two of Pitt’s wins came against ranked teams, —although neither of the opponents were Division I. The Carnegie Mellon men, ranked No. 17 in Division III swimming, fell to Pitt 213-81. The Division II Clarion men, ranked No. 20, lost 215-66. The Wolverines fell 230-61. On the women’s side, No. 13 Clarion lost 232-50, the No. 17 Tartans went down 228-67, No. 12 Grove City (Division III) fell 235-58 and the unranked California (Pa.) women’s team slid 228.5-61.5.

“It was fun to go into a meet without a lot of pressure and to be able to move kids around to different events than they are used to swimming,” head coach Chuck Knoles said. “I think on the women’s side we won every event — and that was moving people around. On the men’s side, we won all but two.”

The meet was more or less a tune-up for the Big East Championship meet that will be held at Trees Pool over the following two weekends. The diving events will take place Friday through Sunday, and the swimming championships will start the following Thursday and run until Sunday.

Much of the team has begun tapering for the championship, so the meet this weekend was a bit of a reprieve. The competition wasn’t all business — the meet also allowed some swimmers to take part in events they don’t usually get a chance to swim during closer contests. Sprint freestyler Dani des Tombe participated in the 100 breaststroke. The men’s best 200 medley relay team was separated. The top team consisted of Joey Notarianni (backstroke), men’s captain Ben Solari (breaststroke), Austin Caldwell (butterfly) and Otto Pagel (freestyle). Distance freestyler Kelsey Herbst wound up swimming the 50- and 100-yard free events. She won both with a 24.47 and a 52.63, respectively.

“It was a nice little switch-up, which is probably good when we get close to Conference [Championships],” Herbst said. “Sometimes I don’t like swimming my events because it freaks me out if I do bad. But I really liked it a lot and was pleased with my times.”

The move put the athletes at ease. With the upcoming championship dominating swimmers’ thoughts, they found a moment to have some fun.

“Everyone was in a good mood. There was a good atmosphere. It took a lot of pressure off of everyone,” Solari said. “Our first meet against Buffalo everyone wanted to win, but it wasn’t the same feeling as how we swam now. We’re swimming together as a team, we’re getting behind each other in order to push each other to the next level.”

And every little bit will help. The championship will largely be a contest between Louisville and Notre Dame, the two titans of the Big East. Louisville swept last year’s championships at home, placing 150 points ahead of the Notre Dame men and women. Last February, the Pitt men fell in third, 400 points off the lead. The women fell off the lead by nearly 500 points, finishing fifth.

“The men’s team swam lights-out last year and had a real strong meet,” Knoles said. “The ladies were a little flat in last year’s championship. So we went back to the drawing board and changed the way we’re training now in these past three weeks to make sure we have a better focus on giving the women a better chance at performing well.”

Heading into this postseason, Pitt will hope to change last year’s outcome. The women (12-8, 5-3 Big East) handily beat Villanova last month by a margin of 244-109 and split their record against West Virginia 1-1. They fell behind both teams, in addition to Louisville and Notre Dame, at last year’s championships.

“We have a goal to do a lot better than we did last year,” Herbst said. “For Villanova though, they really do have a lot of good distance girls, so if we can just hold our own at least in the distance category, we definitely hope to beat Villanova. But as far as West Virginia, we just have to lay everything out on the line and swim fast, because they are a really good team.”

The men’s team (11-4, 5-2) only lost to Louisville and Notre Dame last year. In fourth place was West Virginia, falling just 33 points short of Pitt with 470. This year, the Mountaineers dropped both contests against the Panthers. It’s a trend that Coach Knoles expects to continue in the next few weeks.

“I think the men will come in a comfortable third,” Knoles said. “They might even be nipping at the heels of Notre Dame, depending who decides to show up in the meet. I don’t think Louisville can be caught this year on the men’s side. I think they’re just that much stronger than the rest of the conference at this point.”

Time will tell. Diving preliminaries will start Friday at noon. Swimming action will start the following Thursday at 10 a.m.