Pitt Earns 25 Event Victories in LCM Quad Meet

Saturday, October 12

Pittsburgh, PA

DIVE: 9 AM, SWIM: 1 PM (LCM)

Pitt

Quad Meet vs. Duquesne, Villanova, Youngstown State

Pitt Earns 25 Event Victories in LCM Quad Meet

10/12/2019 6:00:00 PM | Swimming & Diving

Results

PITTSBURGH—The Pitt swimming & diving teams dominated Saturday's long-course meters swimming meet and also swept all four diving events as the Panthers emerged with 25 victories against athletes from Duquesne, Villanova and Youngstown State at Trees Pool.

Pitt junior swimmer Blaise Vera posted the most notable performance of the day, easily winning the 100-meter freestyle with a time of 50.10—a mark good enough to qualify him in the event for the 2020 USA Swimming Olympic Team Trials in June in Omaha, Neb.

"It was really fun to see Blaise get his United States Olympic Trials cut today," Pitt head coach John Hargis said after the meet. "With where we're at in our training, we had some good swims today, but also some not-so-good swims. We were sloppy in some events. It's October, we're training really hard and our freshmen showed for the first time just how tired they are.

"For the most part, we raced and competed well though," Hargis added. "It was a fun competition. To get a long-course meters meet in during an Olympic year was something that we wanted to do. We'll now look forward to heading up to Michigan State next Friday and try to win there."

While Vera's 100 Free time certainly highlighted the day, several other Panthers also emerged victorious from the pool after swimming the LCM format, a departure from the short-course yards system that is predominant in collegiate swimming.

Winning multiple events for Pitt were seniors Valerie Daigneault (200 Back, 200 IM), Samy Helmbacher (100 Breast, 200 Breast) and Eben Vorster (200 Fly, 200 IM), junior Armin Remenyi (200 Free, 100 Fly) and sophomore Dakota Elliott (100 Breast, 200 Breast).

In the morning diving session, sophomore Amy Read swept both women's springboard events with impressive performances that resulted in her posting NCAA Zone Diving Meet cuts. Fellow sophomore Wesley Ahart also recorded wins in both men's competitions as the Panthers made their competitive indoor diving debuts in 2019-20.

Several other Pitt swimmers came away with an event win in the afternoon. Veteran distance athletes Sarah Giamber and Ryan Schonbachler both won the 800-meter freestyle. Bence Szucsik took first in the 200-meter backstroke, Kailyn Swantek triumphed in the 50-meter freestyle, Madison Nalls won the 200-meter freestyle and Kathleen Lynch had a great swim to earn a 100-meter backstroke victory. Along with Vera's win, freshman Wojciech Dutkowiak was another freestyler to place first as he secured top spot in the 400-meter freestyle.

Pitt's relay teams also triumphed in the men's and women's 400-meter medley relays as well as the men's 400-meter freestyle relay.

The Panthers will head to Michigan State for their first traditional head-to-head dual meet of the season next Friday night. Pitt will face the Big Ten program at 4 p.m. in East Lansing, Mich.

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