Pitt Posts Five Event Wins in ACC Meet

Saturday, November 3

South Bend, IN

11 AM

Pitt

Notre Dame & Virginia Tech

Pitt Posts Five Event Wins in ACC Meet

11/3/2018 6:30:00 PM | Swimming & Diving

Results (PDF)

NOTRE DAME, Ind.—The University of Pittsburgh swimming & diving programs posted numerous season-best times and won five races this weekend in a competitive ACC tri-meet against hosting Notre Dame and Virginia Tech at the Rolfs Aquatic Center.

Pitt stand-out junior swimmers Valerie Daigneault and Samy Helmbacher led the way for the Panthers by each winning two individual events. Daigneault, who entered the meet with nine individual victories in Pitt's opening three meets, pushed her season win total to 11 by placing first in the 200 IM (2:01.83) and 100 back (55.21). Helmbacher emerged victorious in the 200 IM (1:47.83) and 200 breast (2:02.14).

Senior Rachel Brown picked up Pitt's other event victory by winning the 50 free with a time of 23.39.

Despite several impressive individual performances, the No. 25 Pitt men were defeated by No. 18 Notre Dame (232-121) and Virginia Tech (239-112), while the Panthers women's team was downed by the No. 13 Irish (255-98) and the Hokies (189.5-163.5).

"I thought we raced hard, and I'm proud of how our student-athletes are competing," Pitt head coach John Hargis said. "We have a tough group that is training hard in the pool and the weight room, and we're seeing phenomenal time progressions for this time of year. The goal is to get faster from meet to meet. We're doing that. The improvements we've made as a program since our meet against Notre Dame and Virginia Tech two years ago is remarkable. Now we have to keep battling."

Pitt diving coach Katie Hazelton also took positives from the meet, highlighting the efforts of freshman Amy Read, who finished third on 1-meter (277.30) and seventh on 3-meter (283.40).

"This was another tough competition for our divers as we took on some of the top ranked divers in the ACC," Hazelton said. "What was exciting is that Amy continues to hold her own as a freshman and we're still working on techniques, so the divers don't have all of their competitive dives in their lists, yet the performances look really promising."

Looking ahead, Pitt swimming & diving will enter its fall invitational season, which should produce more top times and potentially school records in the coming weeks.

"We're focused on staying on schedule with our training regime," Hargis said. "Our goal is to peak for the championship season in February. We're married to the process, and we'll continue working hard in practice with the aim to be at our best when it matters most."

"Next week, we enter the specific preparation phase of training," said Hazelton of the divers. "Each diver will be working on the key individual areas that need focus as we work towards building their competition lists. They are showing good consistency and their basic technique has improved greatly, so when we add to the degree of difficulty then we should see scores improve."

Several Panthers will represent Pitt in next weekend's inaugural ACC/Big Ten Swimming & Diving Challenge at Purdue on Nov. 10-11 before the majority of the team competes at the prestigious Ohio State Invitational the following weekend from Nov. 15-17.

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