Panthers Primed for Ohio State Invitational

Thursday, November 15

Columbus, OH

Pitt

Ohio State Invitational

Panthers Primed for Ohio State Invitational

11/14/2018 7:30:00 PM | Swimming & Diving

Meet Central Live Results

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh swimming & diving teams are set for their fall invitational this weekend as the Panthers prepare to compete at the prestigious Ohio State Invitational from Thursday through Saturday (Nov. 15-17) at the McCorckle Aquatic Pavilion.

Nearly the entire roster of Panthers will travel to the three-day meet to swim and dive against other student-athletes from the region's top teams, including host Ohio State, Penn State, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Kentucky, Yale, Ohio and others, as well as national powerhouse Stanford.

"This is a crucial meet in our season because it's our test run for the ACC Championships," third-year Pitt head coach John Hargis said. "We've had our attention on performing well in this meet for several weeks, and we're anticipating some great times and hopefully some school records and huge top times. It should be a fun weekend with lots of exciting performances from our student-athletes."

"This will be a great test of where we are in the season," Pitt diving coach Katie Hazelton said. "We have some of the top divers in the NCAA and the ACC coming to this meet. I'm especially excited for Saturday as we will have our divers debut on 10-meter platform."

For all three days of the meet, preliminary events will begin at 10 a.m. with finals starting at 5 p.m., with the intention to mimic the setup of the nation's top conference championship meets later this season.

Pitt brings a talented and improving roster of men and women to the Ohio State Invitational. After being ranked earlier this season, the Pitt men dropped out of the CSCAA Top 25 this week but still remain as the first time outside the rankings based on votes.

For those Pitt men, several Panthers who already own school records will have their sights on making more history, including Samy Helmbacher, Brian Ramsey, Aaron Sett, Bence Szucsik and Eben Vorster.

Helmbacher is coming off an incredible effort at the inaugural ACC/Big Ten Challenge last weekend, in which he won the 400-yard individual medley with the nation's top time in the event: 3:44.43.

On the women's side, the Panthers are led by Pitt record-holders Rachel Brown, Valerie Daigneault and Madelyn Shaffer, while Camryn Forbes and Madison Nalls have been impact newcomers.

In diving well, Pitt freshmen Nick Garberina and Amy Read are among the Panthers who will compete against some of the nation's top divers this weekend in Columbus, eager to continue their strong starts to their collegiate careers.

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