Weekend Preview: Slate of Olympic sports highlight weekend action

A statement victory is one in which a team declares who it is to its audience. This weekend, a number of Pitt team’s have that opportunity. 

Women’s basketball

As the men’s basketball squad heads up to the Carrier Dome to face Syracuse in a highly anticipated duel Saturday, the Panthers’ women’s team will take on the Orange the following day at 2 p.m. at the Petersen Events Center.

Syracuse, following a loss to the sixth-ranked Maryland Terrapins on Thursday night, enter Sunday 12-5, with a 1-3 conference record. Most of their offensive production will come via sophomores Brittney Sykes and Brianna Butler, who are both averaging more than 15 points per game.

 Pitt guard Brianna Kiesel looks to continue her string of success a week after being named both ACC and national Player of the Week last week for her performances against Florida State and Virginia. The junior is averaging about 18 points per game to go along with an average of more than five rebounds and four assists.

 Pitt (9-9, 1-4) will be searching for their second conference win of the season, following a 109-66 loss to No. 2 Notre Dame Thursday night.

 Women’s gynmastics

Following a first-place finish in their first meet of the season against Towson University, the women’s gymnastics team looks to build momentum, as they travel to East Lansing, Mich., to compete against the Michigan State Spartans Saturday at 2 p.m.

 The Panthers, led by seniors Brittney Harris and Katie O’Rourke, will look to exact revenge in East Lansing, as Pitt faced the Spartans last season and were edged out, 195.600-195.175.

 Michigan State is 0-1 on the season, falling to Illinois on Jan. 10.

 Wrestling

The Pittsburgh wrestling team will face a monumental challenge Sunday, taking on the fifth-ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys at 1 p.m. in Fitzgerald Field House.

The Panthers, ranked 13th in the nation, head into the match sporting an 8-1 record, with their only blemish being a loss to the top-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions in State College, Pa. They are currently coming off a dominating performance last weekend, in which they outscored opponents Duke, Buffalo and Davidson by a combined score of 109-25.

The Cowboys, who have won 34 national championships, the most of any Division I school in any sport, are looking to bounce back from a 24-6 loss to No. 3 Iowa. Despite their high ranking, they currently sit at a record of 3-3.

 Swimming and diving 

The Pitt swimming and diving teams will be hosting Denison University and James Madison University for a meet at 11 a.m. Saturday. Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete against Denison, while the women will take on James Madison, which fields only a women’s swimming and diving team.

Denison will send its entire men’s team and half of its women’s team to Pittsburgh to compete, while the other half of the women will remain at Denison to take on Grove City. The Denison women are competing after a loss to Ohio University, while the men’s last meet was a victory over Wittenberg University. The James Madison women are fresh off a win against Georgetown.

Both the Panthers’ men’s and women’s teams are looking to match the success they had in their previous meet, in which both squads defeated West Virginia in Morgantown, W.Va. The men and women both boast a 3-2 record on the season.

Track and field 

The Pitt men’s and women’s track and field teams will return to State College this Saturday — after competing in the Penn State Relays last weekend — to participate in the Nittany Lion Challenge.

The men’s 4×200 meter relay team looks to duplicate the success they had in Happy Valley last weekend, where the team of Carvin Nkanata, Brycen Spratling, Micah Murray and Josh Mindlin set a university record by recording a time of 1:27:00, only 2.3 seconds away from matching the NCAA record set by Penn State last year.

The other teams that will attend the Nittany Lion Challenge are Penn State, Albany, Cornell, Maryland and West Virginia. The meet begins at 11 a.m. Saturday.