Panthers Win Several Individual Events in Season-Opening Meet

Saturday, October 6

Tallahassee, FL

9:30 AM

Pitt

Florida State & Georgia Tech

Panthers Win Several Individual Events in Season-Opening Meet

10/6/2018 10:00:00 PM | Swimming & Diving

Final Results (PDF)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Pitt swimming & diving programs opened the 2018-19 season with an Atlantic Coast Conference tri-meet against Florida State and Georgia Tech on Saturday, dropping both matchups against the Seminoles and Yellow Jackets.

The Pitt men (0-2, 0-2 ACC) were defeated by Florida State, 176-123, and Georgia Tech, 188-111. The Pitt women (0-2, 0-2 ACC) also suffered season-opening setbacks to the Seminoles, 197-102, and the Yellow Jackets, 173.5-125.5, at FSU's outdoor Morcom Aquatics Center in Tallahassee.

"The scores weren't indicative of how competitive this meet was for us," third-year Pitt swimming & diving head coach John Hargis said afterwards. "We won a lot of races and had some really strong performances. Some of our newcomers had wide eyes and gained some valuable experience."

Coach Hargis also highlighted several impressive individual performances from the Panthers Saturday.

"For the women, Valerie Daigneault was lights out today. Madelyn Shaffer had a good meet and Madison Nalls had a strong debut performance," Hargis said. "Eben Vorster and Samy Helmbacher competed tough for the men, along with Blaise Vera, who swam well. Overall, we're ahead of where we were at this time last year, which is great to see the progress of the program. We'll continue to train hard and look forward to hosting a meet against George Washington next week at Trees Pool."

Beginning her second season at Pitt, head diving coach Katie Hazelton also took positives from the day.

"Today was a great experience for our team," Hazelton said. "It's always difficult diving outside and to open against some of the best divers in the ACC was a challenge. It was great to see Krista Jones produce a consistent performance. Nick Garberina and Amy Read showed some great technique and made an impact as freshmen against some superb competition. Our divers now have a vision of what it takes to podium at ACCs and are eager to get home and continue working hard in practice."

Winning events for the Panthers on Saturday in Tallahassee were Eben Vorster (1000 Free, 9:20.69) and Brian Lovasik (200 Free, 1:38.10 and 500 Free, 4:33.34) for the men, along with Valerie Daigneault (100 Back, 54.97; 200 Back, 1:57.43; and 200 IM, 2:02.34) and Madelyn Shaffer (200 Fly, 2:02.27) for the women.

Numerous Panthers made their Pitt debuts in the meet, with swimmers Madison Nalls and Camryn Forbes and divers Nick Garberina and Amy Read among the Panthers who earned top-five finishes in the initial meet of the 2018-19 campaign.

Pitt swimming & diving hosts George Washington next Saturday at Trees Pool for a nonconference meet scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. with swimming starting at 11 a.m. Admission is free to all fans.

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