The Pitt men’s and women’s swimming and diving team replicated its performance from a day earlier and soundly beat Bucknell on Saturday, Oct. 25 at Trees Pool to cap a perfect homecoming weekend.
Winning their fourth straight dual was the Pitt women (4-1), topping Bucknell by a score of 195-100. The Panthers men (3-1) won by a similar margin, 185.5-109.5. For the final two races, Pitt swam exhibition races, resulting in a closer score.
In similar fashion to the night before, Pitt displayed its depth in nearly every event, with Panthers posting the fastest time in 28 of the 32 events. There were 16 times in which Pitt had competitors finish one-two, including 12 of those when the team had the top three finishers. Overall, 18 Pitt student-athletes won at least one individual event.
Pitt opened the meet by taking the top-three places in both men’s 1-meter and women’s 3-meter diving and had at least the top two finishers in the first seven events to jump out to an early lead and cruise to the victory.
The men were led by senior Luke Nosbisch and junior David Sweeney, who were the only swimmers for Pitt too win multiple races. Nosbisch swept the breaststroke, winning the 100 in 57.17 seconds and the 200 in a season-best time of 2:04.13. Sweeney tied for first in the 200 free with Bucknell’s Louis Behnen. They both touched the wall in 1:41.43. Sweeney took the 100 free outright in 45.95.
Junior Mack Rice had the fastest time in two races, winning one while racing the other as an exhibition. He won the 100-yd backstroke in the fastest time by a Panther this season at 50.55 seconds and also had the fastest time on the day in the 200 IM (1:53.44).
Nosbisch and Rice teamed up with senior Kourosh Ahani and junior Sean Heiden to win the 200-yd medley relay in 1:31.27. Heiden, who posted a 50 free split time of 20.48 – the fastest 50 free by a Pitt swimmer this year – won that same event later in the meet in 21.07 seconds.
To close out the meet, Ahani, Sweeney, Heiden and senior Jon Lierley swam the fastest 400-yd free together in 3:05.83.
In the 1,000 free, Spencer Gray took first with a time of 9:43.38, followed by sophomore Zach Lierley (9:49.84). Lierley did take first later, however, in the 200 back with a time of 1:50.36.
Continuing his dominance at both diving heights was senior Harris Bergman. He led off men’s diving with a winning score of 334.35 in the 1-meter event, followed closely by sophomore Tony Galante (325.20). The duo placed 1-2 again in the 3-meter, with Bergman finishing on top for the third time in three ties at that height this year, scoring a season-best 377.78 points.
For the women, a pair of freshman made some noise with some top performances in years.
Freshman Meme Sharp, who won the women’s dive, had the Panthers’ best performance of the season in the event with 298.13 points. That was also the highest score by a Panther since Morgan Speece’s 305.10 points in January, 2011. Sharp finished first in the 1-meter (280.58 points) as well to sweep diving on the day.
Classmate Amanda Richey improved to 3-0 in the 1,000-yd freestyle this year in near-record fashion. Although she set the Pitt freshman record for the third time in 9:51.92, she was less than two seconds off junior Kaleigh Ritter’s school record of 9:50.00. Richey’s time stands as the second fastest 1,000 in school history. After finishing second in the 200 back with the second fastest Pitt time this year (2:04.59), and third in the 200 IM, Richey has finished every race in the top-three and won eight of 11 collegiate races overall.
Pitt’s 200 medley relay team consisting of juniors Blair Wegescheide and Danyel Johnson, senior Lauren Mills and sophomore Kinga Cichowska set the tone early just like the men, taking the race in 1:45.38.
Cichowska continued her perfect record this season in the 100 breast, posting a time of 1:02.52, just 0.04 seconds away from her season best time which she set yesterday. She also had the fastest time in the 200 IM of 2:05.52, which crushed the former top Panthers time this season by more than two seconds.
Johnson, who had the top-50 free time for the Panthers in the relay (23.16), won the actual event in 23.85.
Rounding out three freestyle events with wins for Pitt were senior Dani des Tombe, junior Kaleigh Ritter and sophomore Melissa Pocsai. des Tombe won the 200 free convincingly in 1:52.95 and Ritter won the 500 in 5:01.73 with des Tombe finishing a close second in 5:04.96. Pocsai gave the Panthers the sweep in the freestyle events with her best time of the season in the 100 free, finishing in 52.21.
des Tombe and Mills later teamed up with senior Jessica Nederlanden and junior Alex Iwanicki for form the fastest 400 free relay team, with a time of 3:32.73.
Senior Emily Bolek recorded her first win of the season in the 200-yd butterfly, swimming the distance in 2:08.59.
Pitt is off next week and resumes action with a two-day dual meet with Notre Dame and Virginia Tech in South Bend, Ind. on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 7 and 8.
