Men take seventh straight title

The men’s swimming and diving team continued its unparalleled success in the Big East… The men’s swimming and diving team continued its unparalleled success in the Big East Championships last weekend by winning its seventh straight conference title.

Pitt, finishing 135 points over Virginia Tech, used big individual showings over the weekend where 13 meet records were broken.

Scoring 708 points, the men capitalized on five individual wins to go along with their team victory in the 400-yard freestyle relay to win 18 of 21 Big East Conference Championships. Head coach Chuck Knoles has overseen 10 of these.

Many freshmen enjoyed success for the men’s team.

The 400 freestyle relay team of senior Mike Grube, junior Adam Webber and freshmen Eric Bugby and Darryl Washington won Pitt’s only team event. This event was Washington and Bugby’s first career title.

Junior Eric Limkemann won his third straight season victory in the 1,650-yard freestyle. He was 11 seconds faster than his closest opponent and won his sixth career individual championship.

Limkemann also touched the wall first in the 500-yard freestyle.

Freshman diver Dennis Nemtsanov earned second-place honors in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events.

Junior Randy Gertenbach topped a three-year Big East record in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 1 minute, 59.42 seconds.

Despite battling an illness, Grube came through with a victory in the 100-yard freestyle, touching the wall in 44.18 seconds. This was his seventh career individual title. Teammate Washington finished in fourth place.

Bugby followed with an All-Big East honor as he finished third in the 100-yard backstroke. He was followed by freshman teammate Michael Bernardi who finished fourth.

Freshman Jason Miller captured his first Big East title in the 200-yard butterfly while freshmen Steve Marcucio and Chris Ippoliti finished fifth and seventh in the 200-yard breaststroke respectively.

Junior Ken Shelhorse was the final Panther to win an individual event as he finished first in the 200-yard individual medley.

The women’s team finished fifth after losing its two-day fourth place stronghold on the last day of competition. The 17th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish came out on top in the women’s championships.

“They [Notre Dame] are phenomenally deep,” Knoles said.

Freshman Nicole Ebert was named All-Big East after finishing third place in the 1,650-yard freestyle. Ebert then went on to a seventh place finish that same day in the 200-yard butterfly.

All-conference honors are awarded to those swimmers and divers placing in the top three slots in the event.

Senior Emily Colley finished her Big East career with a fifth place finish behind Ebert in the 1,650 freestyle.

Junior Carolyne Savini broke her own school record by 3.5 seconds in the 200-yard backstroke. Savini touched the wall in second place.

Savini had another second place finish as part of the 200-yard medley relay team. She was joined by juniors Ryan Redman, Kelli Tielking and Jenny Livingstone.

The Panthers’ lone first place finish came in the 100-yard breaststroke from Redman.