Pitt swimming dominates ‘Eers

Pitt won all but one event and four Panther swimmers took first place in multiple events as… Pitt won all but one event and four Panther swimmers took first place in multiple events as the Pitt men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams dominated the West Virginia Mountaineers at Trees Pool in their first Big East dual meet of the 2002-03 season.

For the women’s team, it was Pitt’s second dual meet victory in a row, following a 123-120 Jan. 5 thriller at Harvard. But the men’s team looked to win its Big East opener and rebound from an upset loss to the then-No. 21 Bulldogs.

“I think last week we had a pretty disappointing performance against Harvard, and they beat us soundly,” Pitt head coach Chuck Knoles said. “The teams needed to come back and swim well to build a little self confidence. We swam the strongest lineup that we possibly could and used a lot of people in doubles. Our goal was to try to win as many races as we could.”

The Panthers succeeded, as the women’s team took first place in all 13 of their events and the only West Virginia win came in the men’s 50-yard freestyle, when Mountaineer sophomore Matt Drozd touched the wall at 21 minutes, 13 seconds to eek out the victory over Pitt freshman Darryl Washington.

Pitt 197, West Virginia 43 (women)

Colleen Kristobak got the Panthers out to an early lead, as the freshman diver finished with a score of 279.08 to get a win on the 3-meter board. The Bethel Park native later scored her second victory of the day from 1-meter, finishing with a score 243.53 and earning 18 points on the day for Pitt.

The 400-yard medley relay team of Kelly Redcay, Ryan Redman, Kelli Tielking and Courtney Budd continued Pitt’s domination as they clocked in at 3:56.13 to earn 11 points and the victory. Freshman Nicole Ebert then won the 1,000 freestyle with a time of 10:28.20, and junior co-captain Carolyne Savini won her first race of the day in the 200 freestyle, touching the wall at 1:52.97.

Savini later went on to win the 200-yard individual medley and the 200-yard backstroke, and said she felt good about her performance despite a long holiday layoff.

“For this time of the year, it’s really hard to come back after not racing pretty much the whole month of December, so I felt pretty good,” Savini said. “It was just a matter of not giving up, pressing every stroke and hanging on to the early lead.”

Rounding out the individual winners for the Panthers were Redman in the 50 freestyle and 200-yard breaststroke, Jen Koch in the 200-yard butterfly, Jenny Livingstone in the 100 freestyle and Emily Colley in the 500 freestyle. The Panthers finished up the day with a team victory in the 400 freestyle relay thanks to Kate Butrie, Colley, Tielking and Kristin Criner.

Overall, the Panthers (3-4 overall, 1-1 Big East) swept at least the top three spots in seven of the 13 events in which they participated, and their 154-point margin of victory was by far their largest of the season. They will travel to Maryland on Friday to take on the No. 15 Terrapins, while the Mountaineers (5-4, 1-2) will host Syracuse on Saturday.

No. 18 Pitt 185, West Virginia 58 (men)

Freshman diver Dennis Nemtsanov picked up where Kristobak left off, putting up scores of 292.13 and 307.58 to win both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competitions, respectively. Pitt took at least the top three spots in both of the diving competitions to build a commanding lead.

The Panther swimmers started off the day with a team win in the 400 relay, with the team of Michael Bernardi, Steve Marcucio, Brian Bonczek and Washington touching the wall at 3:27.25. Sophomore Hannes Kohnke then won his first victory of the season over teammate Eric Limkemann in the 1,000 freestyle, clocking in at 9:32.87. Kohnke earned another nine points in the 500 freestyle, and he says that his ability to relax helped him to earn the two wins.

“I used to have a hard time relaxing before the meet. I’d get tense and couldn’t perform as well, but today I felt really relaxed,” Kohnke said. “In the 500, that was probably my in-season best.”

Kohnke wasn’t the only Panther to garner two victories, as senior co-captain Mike Grube won both the 200 and 100 freestyles.

“It was a little bit different today because I swam back-to-back events, but I feel that I did fairly well as compared to earlier on in the season,” Grube said.

Other individual winners for Pitt included Bernardi in the 200-yard individual medley, Jason Miller in the 200 butterfly, Thomas Bird in the 200 backstroke and Christopher Ippoliti in the 200 breaststroke. Like the women, the men finished the day with a victory in the 400 freestyle relay, as the team of Stephen Kilroy, Eric Bugby, Raymond Brush and Bernardi finished with a time of 3:08.19.

The win was Pitt’s biggest since an Oct. 25 victory over St. Bonaventure, but Knoles says that the difference between the levels of development within the two programs has a lot to do with the large margin of victory.

“Their program is in a rebuilding stage, but they’re coming back well. We’ll see a lot more of West Virginia in the next couple of years,” Knoles said. “But right now, we’re a much more mature team, and I think that that type of performance was to be expected.”

Pitt (3-3, 1-0) will visit Maryland with the women’s team Jan. 17, while the Mountaineers (4-4, 1-2) will participate in a dual meet at home against Syracuse Jan. 18.