Despite a tough Backyard Brawl with West Virginia on Saturday, Pitt’s swimming and diving… Despite a tough Backyard Brawl with West Virginia on Saturday, Pitt’s swimming and diving teams came out victorious. The men beat the Mountaineers with a score of 131-110, and the women, who are still undefeated for the season, won 124-119.

The women’s victory came down to a necessary win in the final 400-yard freestyle relay. The same situation happened the last time the teams competed in a dual meet, when they swam against Notre Dame in November.

That win came down to the final seconds of the event, as the relay team of Agnes Mago, Lisa McDonnell, Megan Sculley and Stacie Safritt beat out West Virginia’s top team by only 23 hundredths of a second.

Though neither the men nor the women had many wins, they picked up points by coming in second, third and fourth, often sweeping all three of those places. Last year, the Mountaineers won both contests, and the West Virginia men were the Big East champions.

“It was nice to see the kids struggle to get back into racing but do well,” coach Chuck Knoles said. “I always like to see us getting through obstacles to win. We didn’t win that many events, but we won [the meet] because we’re so deep.”

The Panthers will come back home to compete this weekend as they face Maryland, Penn State and Villanova in a two-day event Friday and Saturday.

To secure an overall victory, the Panthers had to win at least one relay on each side, and the men took care of that at the very beginning by winning the 400-yard medley relay. The relay team, comprised of Andrzej Dubiel, Warren Barnes, Adam Plutecki and Patrick Mansfield, touched the wall just more than one second ahead of West Virginia’s top relay team to secure 11 points.

The next event, the 1,000-yard freestyle, proved to be another crucial one for the Panthers, even though neither side won. Both sides had swimmers come in second, third and fourth, giving them the same nine points that would’ve been earned with a win.

“That’s what won the meet for us,” Knoles said, “that we were able to hang in there and get the 2-3-4.”

Katie Cutrell, Caitlyn Harrington and Laura Rosenberg came in second, third and fourth for the women while Zack Phillips, Scott Shearer and Chris George did so for the men.

Freshman Alex McLaren came up with a big win in the 200 freestyle, which Knoles described as being “very solid from beginning to end,” touching the wall in a time of 1:44.67.

“That race was a little unexpected,” Knoles said. “But [McLaren]’s been doing some great stuff in practice.”

In the 200 individual medley, junior Agnes Mago had a tough race with West Virginia’s Isabel Perez as the two swam neck-in-neck throughout.

Mago, who was also a member of the win-clinching 400-free relay, managed to take the event. Mago also won the 500 freestyle.

A great number of points also came from the divers, especially junior Alex Volovetski, who won both the 3-meter and 1-meter diving events. The rest of the men’s diving team followed up on Volovetski’s performance, as Jeremy Stultz and Zane McLain came in second and third, respectively, in the 1M event.

Stultz and Colin Forner did the same in the 3M event, coming in second and third, respectively.

For the women, Hanna Bratton took the 3M. Other key performances came from Cookie McIntyre and Chris George in their 200-butterfly races, which they both won.

“It wasn’t the prettiest win, but a win is a win. The kids did what they needed to do, and I’m really proud of them.”