In his first competitive home meet as the Pitt swimming & diving head coach, John Hargis witnessed Pitt take down Buffalo in a pair of meets.
Pitt Press Release
PITTSBURGH—The Pitt swimming & diving teams both won in their 2016-17 home opener against Buffalo on Friday night in front of a raucous crowd at Trees Pool.
The Panthers (3-1, 2-1 ACC) defeated the Bulls (0-1) by a score of 190.5-109.5 on the women’s side, while Pitt (2-2, 1-2 ACC) also edged Buffalo (0-1) in the men’s competition by a margin of 151-149.
In his first competitive home meet as the Pitt swimming & diving head coach, John Hargis thought that his team's dominance in diving played a key role in the victories and also highlighted the improvements that the Panthers continue to display in their times and scores.
“We knew the men’s meet would be tough because Buffalo has a very good team,” Hargis said. “We relied on certain people in certain areas. Diving really helped us tonight. Our swimming continues to get better every time we jump on the blocks, and that’s what we want to see. We had several swimmers with the best times of their careers tonight. That’s all you can ask for.”
In total, Pitt won nine swimming events on the women’s side and six men’s races, while Dominic Giordano and Meme Sharp both swept top spots in their 1M and 3M diving events for the Panthers.
The Panthers won comfortably on the women’s side after junior distance freestyle swimmer Amanda Richey and Valerie Daigneault joined Sharp in winning two events, with Richey taking the 1650 free in a thrilling finish by just .04 seconds and also claiming first in the 500 free and Daigneault triumphing in the 200 back and 200 IM. Kinga Cichowska (200 breast), Lina Rathsack (100 breast) and Shan Hochkeppel (100 back) also had important victories for Pitt, which swept the two relay events as well.
Pitt emerged with swimming wins in men’s races courtesy of two-time winner Brian Lovasik (100 free, 200 free), Aaron Sett (1650 free), Spencer Gray (500 free), Henrique Machado (100 back) and Jake Tovey (200 fly).
Giordano’s two diving wins and a pair of third-place diving finishes by Joe Ference provided Pitt the team points on the men’s side that propelled the Panthers to victory on Friday night.
Coach Hargis loved the atmosphere created by the Pitt fans in his home debut as head coach.
“The energy in this building definitely aided our student-athletes,” Hargis said. “The more excitement the crowd can bring to our home meets, the more it’ll help us be successful here.”
The Pitt swimming & diving team will compete at Trees Pool again next weekend when the Panthers resume ACC action with a home meet against Notre Dame and Virginia Tech on Friday and Saturday. Friday’s action begins at 5 p.m. before competition resumes on Saturday at 10 a.m.
