Swimming and diving splashed by VT, UVA

The waters of Trees Pool were unusually rough this weekend, as two different Virginia… The waters of Trees Pool were unusually rough this weekend, as two different Virginia schools dealt losses to both the Pitt men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams.

The weekend started with Pitt matched up against Virginia Tech in a meet that began close, but quickly took a turn for the worse. The beating continued into Sunday, as the men and women took on the University of Virginia to no avail.

The Pitt men and women now stand with 5-4 and 7-3 records, respectively. The Panther women claimed the closest team-finish of the weekend, only losing to the Hokies by 10 on Saturday, 155-145, but lost to Virginia 184-116. The men lost to Virginia Tech, 179-121, and to Virginia, 132-166.

To start the chlorine-heavy weekend, Pitt won the men’s 200-yard relay by a cool quarter of a second. Then, senior captain Kristin Brown set the individual races off to a good start. Having to swim neck and neck with Virginia Tech’s Stephanie Jones for a full 40 laps, Brown prevailed in the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:14.19. Her fellow distance swimmer Chris George also delivered a win for Pitt in the men’s turn at the event.

Splitting nearly every event’s first and second places between the two teams, Pitt’s normally dominant swimmer in the back stroke, Jeff Leath, failed to deliver the top points in the 100, as Virginia Tech’s Scott Beard out-swam him with a 49.84. Leath also could not prevail later in the meet in his 200 back, while two Hokies, Gus Calado and Kevin Koehr, touched seconds before Leath’s 1:54.57 mark.

But, Pitt junior Warren Barnes gave a surge of hope after the 100 back as he glided to a three-second victory in the 100-yard breaststroke in front of teammate Dave Montgomery’s second place of 58.22. Barnes proved to be no match for the distance breaststrokers, either, winning the 200 by almost half a length with a time of 2:04.43.

The buzz from Barnes’ 100-meter win was quickly silenced, though, when the men of Virginia Tech literally shut out the next three events, grabbing first, second and third places in the 200 butterfly and the 50 freestyle and adding first through fourth place finishes in the 100 free.

Sunday proved to be just as difficult for the men’s team, as Virginia shut out Pitt in both relays and stole at least the top three places from the Panthers in four separate events – the 1000 free, 100 back, 200 butterfly and 500 free.

Also suffering a difficult weekend, Pitt’s team of seemingly unstoppable male divers faltered slightly. Alex Volovetski, who usually triumphs in the one-meter dive while his teammate Jeremy Stultz takes the 3M, dove to a first place, two second places and a third place over the course of the meets, winning only Saturday’s 1M with 367.73 points.

Stultz, a junior, swept the three-meter dive on both days and also took the 1M on Sunday with a performance worth 341.33 points. Female diver Margo Ekstrom also won the 1M on both days, scoring 236.77 and 238.43, respectively.

But disappointments for the Panthers were not the only events that shaped the weekend. Saturday’s meet against Virginia Tech welcomed the most spectators of the season, as the Pitt cheerleaders rallied the fans at the annual “Pack the Pool” event.

And standout Adam Plutecki did not fail to impress, yet again, in shattering the school record in the 200 IM with a time of 1:49.43. This swim marks the third record to fall under his name, having previously captured the breaststroke titles weeks ago.

Plutecki bested his two-week old 100 breaststroke school record, posting a time .29 seconds faster than his original 54.10.

Sophomore Agnes Mago also had an impressive showing on Saturday, as she easily won the 200 butterfly with a 2:02.17 – more than five seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

Leath bounced back from his performance on Saturday with two individual first-place finishes and a second place finish on the 200-medley relay team against UVA. His first in the 50 free, clocking in at 21.08, was one of the only instances of the Panther men breaking up Virginia’s control over Sunday’s races. Leath led teammates Patrick Mansfield and Alex Kubicek to a one-two-three shutout in the event.

Further, Andrea Shoust, the top back-stroker on the women’s team, seemed unshakable over the course of the weekend, winning the 200 back on Sunday and the 100 back both days with consistent 55.9-second swims.