Swimming and diving squads down Virginia Tech

Last Saturday, the Pitt swimming and diving team welcomed former conference opponent Virginia… Last Saturday, the Pitt swimming and diving team welcomed former conference opponent Virginia Tech to Trees Pool. The meet took nearly four hours to complete but wasn’t decided until the last event, and that came down to one-tenth of a second.

The Panthers’ men’s 400-yard freestyle relay team of Jason Miller, Jeff Leath, Nathan McCutcheon and Tommy Bird finished with a time of 3 minutes, 4.96 seconds, which edged the Hokies’ relay team to clinch a 125-118 Pitt victory and improve the Panthers’ record to 8-3.

Pitt head coach Chuck Knoles was relieved but not surprised after the close meet.

“That was a little too close for comfort there at the end,” Knoles said. “But, we’ll take it.”

Knoles knew that even though Virginia Tech is no longer a conference opponent, the Hokies would give Pitt all it could handle. Last season, the Panthers topped the Hokies by only four points.

“They have a great program; when they decided to leave the conference, I was hurt,” Knoles said. “[Virginia Tech’s head] coach Skinner is a phenomenal coach. I really enjoy swimming against a Ned Skinner-coached team. I think we both would like to keep this rivalry going, and hopefully they’ll be on our schedule for a long time.”

Along with the exciting relay victory to close out the meet, several other Panthers turned in strong performances.

Pitt swept the top three spots in the 1-meter diving event, while freshman Jeremy Stultz earned two first-place finishes in diving competition.

Freshman Chris George was the first Panther swimmer to earn a victory Saturday, winning the 1000 freestyle with a time of 9:28.07, nine seconds faster than the second-place finisher. Teammate and co-captain Hannes Kohnke finished third in that event, but took first in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:40.81. George followed closely at 4:43.00 to place second for Pitt.

On the women’s side of the meet, the Panthers turned in another decisive victory and defeated the Hokies 139.5-103.5 to also improve to 8-3.

From the very first event, the 400-yard medley relay, the Pitt women set the tone for the meet. That relay team of Andrea Shoust, Cynthia Snyder, Jen Koch and Jordan Wallace finished five seconds faster than the second-place team.

Junior Kate Butrie turned in a season-best performance in claiming the 500 freestyle, while also winning the 1000 freestyle nine seconds faster than the second place finisher.

Sophomore Kristin Brown also added two individual first-place finishes Saturday. Brown won the 200 and 100 freestyle events.

Freshman diver Megan McCandless finished in the top two in both events, including a first-place finish in the 3-meter event.

Knoles was very impressed by the solid victory of the women’s team.

“I don’t think we have seen the best from our women yet,” Knoles said after the meet. “I think they are going to be a group that is going to surprise a lot of people once we get to Big East [Championships]. Once they get a little bit rested, I think we will see much better times than we already have.”

The Panthers will hit the pool again this weekend when Clarion and Duquesne come to Trees Pool for Pitt’s final meet before postseason play.

The meet is scheduled to start at 11 a.m., and the Panther seniors will be recognized at the meet.